Research activities at iFEL Osaka, including development of FEL systems and application programs, will be reviewed.

A pump-probe technique is essential for a proper understanding of laser interaction with tissue and material. Our pump-probe system divides the incident mid-infrared Free Electron Laser (MIR-FEL) into two beams with equal intensity, and crosses simultaneously the two incoming beams at the same position. One is for a pump beam, another is for a probe beam. Time-resolved absorption spectroscopy involving this technique gives us information on the vibrational dynamics of molecules. We have developed this system for an MIR-FEL using a non-coating ZnSe beam splitter cube. The beam splitter cube is composed of two ZnSe prisms in the shape like a trapezoid. The two pulses with equal intensity are generated due to Fresnel reflection and transmission at the boundary between two prisms, then are reflected due to total reflection at other side boundaries between each prism and air, and illuminate simultaneously the same spot. We have conducted a proof-of-concept of experiment of this system using an MIR-FEL. We showed that this system is applicable for a broad waveband (6-11 μm). Thus, we proved that this system without complicated optical alignment is useful for absorption spectroscopy.