Plasma Based X-ray Lasers Used For Opacity and Ablation Rate Measurements
- Department of Physics, University of York, York YO10 5D (United Kingdom)
- PALS Centre, 18221 Prague 8 (Czech Republic)
- Department of Pure and Applied Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN (United Kingdom)
- Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton Didcot OX11 0QX (United Kingdom)
Utilizing thin targets, opacities of iron have been measured using x-ray lasers of photon energy 89 eV created by pumping with the VULCAN laser. The thin targets comprise a plastic substrate, a 50 nm thick iron layer and an overlay of 100 nm CH and are separately heated by spot focus laser pulses. We have demonstrated that X-ray laser brightness is sufficient to overcome the self-emission of hot plasma so that useful opacity measurements can be made. The transmission through the targets agrees generally with the calculated transmission from a fluid code simulation coupled to the TOPS plasma opacity data. The ablation of aluminum foil with a thin (50 nm) iron coating was also observed using a neon-like zinc x-ray laser of photon energy 58 eV at the PALS centre. The x-ray laser was used to probe sample targets as they were heated by a separate laser beam of 10 J, focused to a 100 micron diameter spot. A simple calculation of the rate of ablation of the iron gives x-ray laser transmission through the targets in agreement with experiment. We suggest that x-ray laser probing can be a useful diagnostic of ablation rates in laser-plasmas.
- OSTI ID:
- 20798478
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 827, Issue 1; Conference: 3. international conference on superstrong fields in plasmas, Varenna (Italy), 19-24 Sep 2005; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2195225; (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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