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Title: Generation of intense ultrashort x-ray pulses

Conference ·
OSTI ID:10181036
; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
  2. Georgia Univ., Macon, GA (United States)

Modeling of x-ray emission from targets heated by an ultrashort-pulse high-intensity optical laser is discussed. One application, using the emitted x rays, is pumping inner-shell photo-ionized x-ray lasers. Short wavelength lasing ({lambda} {le} 15 {Angstrom}) requires fast rise-time 1--3 key x rays to ionize inner K-shell electrons. It has been shown that structured targets, consisting of grooves on a solid material or a composite of clusters, have high absorption. We model grooved targets as an ensemble of exploding foils finding that the rise time of x rays is rapid enough for pumping inner-shell x-ray lasers. We show that simple atomic models can overestimate the energy in x-ray emission bands. High-Z materials are found to have the highest conversion efficiency but mid-Z materials can be used to provide a band of emission at a particular energy. We show that the pondermotive inhibition of expansion has only a small effect on the x-ray emission. The emission of a Au plasma is found to be appropriate for pumping inner-shell lasing at 14.6 {Angstrom} in Ne. The required optical laser intensity is of order 10{sup 17} W/cm{sup 2} using a 100 fsec FWHM duration pulse. To produce a laser with a gain-length product of order 10 requires 5--15 J of optical energy.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
10181036
Report Number(s):
UCRL-JC-112492; CONF-930722-29; ON: DE93019607
Resource Relation:
Conference: Annual meeting of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE),San Diego, CA (United States),11-16 Jul 1993; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1993
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English