[en] A method has been developed and applied to measure the beam waist and spot size of a focused soft x-ray beam at the free-electron laser FLASH of the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg. The method is based on a saturation effect upon atomic photoionization and represents an indestructible tool for the characterization of powerful beams of ionizing electromagnetic radiation. At the microfocus beamline BL2 at FLASH, a full width at half maximum focus diameter of (15±2) μm was determined

[en] We have developed different types of photodetectors that are based on the photoionization of a gas at a low target density. The almost transparent devices were optimized and tested for online photon diagnostics at current and future x-ray free-electron laser facilities on a shot-to-shot basis with a temporal resolution of better than 100 ns. Characterization and calibration measurements were performed in the laboratory of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt at the electron storage ring BESSY II in Berlin. As a result, measurement uncertainties of better than 10% for the photon-pulse energy and below 20 μm for the photon-beam position were achieved at the Free-electron LASer in Hamburg (FLASH). An upgrade for the detection of hard x-rays was tested at the Sub-Picosecond Photon Source in Stanford