  We utilize coherent femtosecond extreme ultraviolet (EUV) pulses derived from
a free electron laser (FEL) to generate transient periodic magnetization
patterns with periods as short as 44 nm. Combining spatially periodic
excitation with resonant probing at the dichroic M-edge of cobalt allows us to
create and probe transient gratings of electronic and magnetic excitations in a
CoGd alloy. In a demagnetized sample, we observe an electronic excitation with
50 fs rise time close to the FEL pulse duration and ~0.5 ps decay time within
the range for the electron-phonon relaxation in metals. When the experiment is
performed on a sample magnetized to saturation in an external field, we observe
a magnetization grating, which appears on a sub-picosecond time scale as the
sample is demagnetized at the maxima of the EUV intensity and then decays on
the time scale of tens of picoseconds via thermal diffusion. The described
approach opens prospects for studying dynamics of ultrafast magnetic phenomena
on nanometer length scales.
