Spatio-temporal coherent control of thermal excitations in solids

X-ray reflectivity (XRR) measurements of femtosecond laser-induced transient gratings are applied to demonstrate the spatio-temporal coherent control of thermally induced surface deformations on ultrafast timescales. Using gracing incidence X-ray diffraction we unambiguously measure the amplitude of transient surface deformations with sub-\AA{} resolution. Understanding the dynamics of femtosecond TG excitations in terms of superposition of acoustic and thermal gratings makes it possible to develop new ways of coherent control in X-ray diffraction experiments. Being the dominant source of TG signal, the long-living thermal grating with spatial period $\Lambda$ can be canceled by a second, time-delayed TG excitation shifted by $\Lambda/2$. The ultimate speed limits of such an ultrafast X-ray shutter are inferred from the detailed analysis of thermal and acoustic dynamics in TG experiments.