Spatial coherence measurements of a 13.2 nm transient Nickel-like Cadmium soft x-ray laser pumped at grazing incidence
Date
2006
Authors
Attwood, D. T., author
Rocca, Jorge J., author
Luther, B. M., author
Larotonda, M. A., author
Wang, Y., author
Liu, Y., author
Optical Society of America, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
The spatial coherence of a 13.2 nm transient collisional Ni-like Cd soft X-ray laser pumped at 23 degrees grazing incidence was measured in a series of Young's double-slit experiments. We observed pronounced fringe visibility variations associated with microstructures in the beam's intensity profile. The transverse coherence length was measured to be about 1/20 of the beam diameter and did not significantly improve with longer plasma columns. The equivalent incoherent source size is determined to be 10 μm and the laser's peak spectral brightness ~ 3 × 1023 photons/sec/mm2/mrad2 within less than 0.01% spectral bandwidth.