We present a review of recent development and applications of soft x-ray lasers, undertaken at the PALS Centre. The applications benefit from up to 10-mJ pulses at the wavelength of 21.2 nm. We describe the pumping regimes used to produce this soft x-ray laser, and outline its emission characteristics. A significant fraction of applications carried out using this device includes probing of dense plasmas produced by IR laser pulses and high-energy-density-in-matter experiments. Results obtained in these experiments are reviewed, including x-ray laser probing of dense plasmas, measurements of transmission of focused soft x-ray radiation at intensities of up to 10¹² Wcm^-2, measurements of IR laser ablation rates of thin foils, and probing high density plasmas by x-ray laser Thomson scattering

Date Published: 12 October 2007
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6702, Soft X-Ray Lasers and Applications VII, 67020G (12 October 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.734652

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6702:
Soft X-Ray Lasers and Applications VII
Gregory J. Tallents; James Dunn, Editor(s)