10-Hz grazing--incidence pumped Ni-like Mo x-ray laser

Pulse duration of a partially coherent soft X-ray laser estimated from far-field speckle statistics

A novel method for estimating the pulse duration of partially coherent soft X-ray pulses from a far-field intensity pattern is presented. The method is based on intensity statistics at a single point in space and time, which allows the number of coherent longitudinal modes to be measured. Utilizing the knowledge of the coherence time of the radiation, either from the measurement of the spectral bandwidth or from numerical simulations, the duration of each individual pulse can be evaluated. This method was used to estimate the pulse duration of the laser-driven nickel-like molybdenum soft X-ray laser that is based on amplified spontaneous emission from a narrow plasma column and emits at a wavelength of 18.9 nm. By varying the length of the gain medium, a clear dependence of the number of modes caused mainly by the spectral line narrowing was observed. Supported by simulations of radiative transfer and pulse propagation, the pulse duration at the end of a 3 mm long gain medium was estimated to be 3.5 ps. The experimental data from far-field intensity patterns were also analyzed by applying the generalized van Cittert-Zernike theorem, providing a lower bound of effective source size.

Transverse Coherence Limited Coherent Diffraction Imaging using a Molybdenum Soft X-ray Laser Pumped at Moderate Pump Energies

Coherent diffraction imaging (CDI) in the extreme ultraviolet has become an important tool for nanoscale investigations. Laser-driven high harmonic generation (HHG) sources allow for lab scale applications such as cancer cell classification and phase-resolved surface studies. HHG sources exhibit excellent coherence but limited photon flux due poor conversion efficiency. In contrast, table-top soft X-ray lasers (SXRL) feature excellent temporal coherence and extraordinary high flux at limited transverse coherence. Here, the performance of a SXRL pumped at moderate pump energies is evaluated for CDI and compared to a HHG source. For CDI, a lower bound for the required mutual coherence factor of |μ₁₂| ≥ 0.75 is found by comparing a reconstruction with fixed support to a conventional characterization using double slits. A comparison of the captured diffraction signals suggests that SXRLs have the potential for imaging micron scale objects with sub-20 nm resolution in orders of magnitude shorter integration time compared to a conventional HHG source. Here, the low transverse coherence diameter limits the resolution to approximately 180 nm. The extraordinary high photon flux per laser shot, scalability towards higher repetition rate and capability of seeding with a high harmonic source opens a route for higher performance nanoscale imaging systems based on SXRLs.

Role of the precursor in a triple-pulse pumping scheme of a nickel-like silver soft-x-ray laser in the grazing-incidence-pumping geometry

Soft x-ray lasers pumped in the grazing incidence geometry show strongly reduced energetic needs but hardly changed conversion efficiency between the pump energy and the output short-wavelength radiation. Numerical analysis presented in the paper concerns with performance of a Ni-like Ag soft-x-ray laser pumped by a triple-pulse structure in the grazing incidence geometry as a function of the puming conditions. It was found that a weak precursor preceding the main preforming and heating pulses by a few nanoseconds is crucial for the energy deposition. Its presence enables in different arrangements a reasonable reduction in the pump energy and relaxation of the steep density gradients as well as a control over partition of the deposited energy. As a consequence, it was concluded that a well energetically balanced three- or multipulse composition seems to be a reasonable way to achieve performance improvement.

High-repetition-rate chirped-pulse-amplification thin-disk laser system with joule-level pulse energy

We are reporting on the development of a diode-pumped chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) laser system based on Yb:YAG thin-disk technology with a repetition rate of 100 Hz and output pulse energy in the joule range. The focus lies with the first results of the preamplifier--a regenerative amplifier (RA) and a multipass amplifier (MP). The system consists of a front end including the CPA stretcher followed by an amplifier chain based on Yb:YAG thin-disk amplifiers and the CPA compressor. It is developed in the frame of our x-ray laser (XRL) program and fulfills all requirements for pumping a plasma-based XRL in grazing incidence pumping geometry. Of course it can also be used for other interesting applications. With the RA pulse energies of more than 165 mJ can be realized. At a repetition rate of 100 Hz a stability of 0.8% (1sigma) over a period of more than 45 min has been measured. The optical-to-optical efficiency is 14%. The following MP amplifier can increase the pulse energy to more than 300 mJ. A nearly bandwidth-limited recompression to less than 2 ps could be demonstrated.

Optimal main pulse angle for different preplasma conditions in transient collisionally pumped x-ray lasers

The effects of the incidence angle of the main pump (MP) pulse in non-normal pumping geometry and the influence of the MP duration are investigated experimentally and theoretically for a transient collisionally pumped (TCE) x-ray laser in Ni-like Zr at 45 degrees and 72 degrees incidence angle on the target. The way they transfer to the x-ray laser output depends on the preplasma conditions, most notably on the average ionization distribution at the arrival of the MP. Moreover, contrary to previous grazing incidence pumping results, it is found that the shortest attainable MP maximizes the output. Modeling of the experimental results is performed with EHYBRID code. The results are important for scaling high repetition-rate non-normal incidence pumped lasers to sub- 10nm wavelengths.

Optimization toward a high-average-brightness soft-x-ray laser pumped at grazing incidence

We report the near-field imaging characterization of a 10 Hz Ni-like 18.9 nm molybdenum soft-x-ray laser pumped in a grazing incidence pumping (GRIP) geometry with a table-top laser driver. We investigate the effect of varying the GRIP angle on the spatial behavior of the soft-x-ray laser source. After multiparameter optimization, we were able to find conditions to generate routinely a high-repetition-rate soft-x-ray laser with an energy level of up to 3 microJ/pulse and to 6x10(17) photons/s/mm2/mrad2/(0.1% bandwidth) average brightness and 1x10(28) photons/s/mm2/mrad2/(0.1% bandwidth) peak brightness.