A soft X-ray approach to electron-phonon interactions beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation

With modern soft X-ray methods, the whole field of electron-phonon interactions becomes accessible directly in the ultrafast time domain with ultrashort pulsed X-ray sources, as well as in the energy domain through modern highly resolving spectrometers. The well-known core-hole clock approach plays an intermediate role, resolving energetic and temporal features at the same time. In this perspective paper, we review several experiments to illustrate the modern advances in the selective study of electron-phonon interactions as fundamentally determining ingredients for materials properties. We present the different complementary approaches that can be taken with soft X-ray methods to conquer this field beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.