Millijoule-level laser pulses and multi-milliwatt average power have been obtained for the first time from a table-top soft x-ray laser. Laser pulses with energy up to 1 mJ and an average power of approximately equals 3.5 mW were generated at a wavelength of 46.9 nm by single pass amplification in a 34.5 cm long Ne-like Ar capillary discharge plasma. The large gain-length product of this plasma column allows for soft x-ray amplification in a highly saturated regime, resulting in very efficient energy extraction. An average laser output pulse energy of 0.88 mJ and peak power of 0.6 MW were obtained at a repetition rate of 4 Hz. The spatially coherent average power emitted by this 26.5 eV laser is comparable to that generated at this photon energy in a similar bandwidth ((Delta) (lambda) /(lambda) equals 10^-4) by a third-generation synchrotron beam-line, which its peak spatially coherent power exceeds that of the undulator by several orders of magnitude. With an estimated peak spectral brightness of approximately equals 1 X 10²³ photons/(s mm² mrad² 0.01% bandwidth) this table-top laser is one of the brightest soft x-ray sources to date.

Date Published: 21 October 1999
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 3776, Soft X-Ray Lasers and Applications III, (21 October 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.366663

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3776:
Soft X-Ray Lasers and Applications III
Jorge J. G. Rocca; Luiz Barroca Da Silva, Editor(s)