Interaction of a pulsed gas target with Nd-laser radiation and laser-produced plasma

Abstract

A spectroscopic investigation was made of a debris-free soft X-ray radiation source driven by the pulses of a solid-state laser (0.4 J, 6 ns, 1.08 microns) focused in a pulsed xenon jet. Source images at a wavelength of 180 Å were obtained using a concave soft X-ray multilayer mirror. To obtain space-resolved source emission spectra above 125 Å, advantage was taken of a stigmatic high-transmission broadband diffraction spectrograph. The spectrograph comprised a large-aperture transmission diffraction grating (1000 or 5000 lines/mm) and a novel aperiodic focusing normal-incidence multilayer mirror possessing a uniform reflectivity in the 125 -250 Å range. The yield of soft X-ray radiation was determined with the aid of a fast absolute-calibrated X-ray AXUV-5 photodiode. The photoabsorption in the peripheral gas-jet regions was found to play a significant role in the soft X-ray yield. Numerical model simulations were performed to elucidate the plasma dynamics. The soft X-ray spectrograph was also employed to study the interaction of the pulsed gas jet with the incident stream of the plasma produced by laser irradiation of a ~1-cm distant solid target. The soft X-ray spectra arising from the interaction were attributed to the charge exchange of multiply charged plasma ions with gas jet atoms.