Generation of millijoule-level soft-x-ray laser pulses at a 4-Hz repetition rate in a highly saturated tabletop capillary discharge amplifier
Date
1999
Authors
Benware, B. R., author
Macchietto, C. D., author
Rocca, Jorge J., author
Optical Society of America, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Laser pulses with energies of as much as 1 mJ 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 inefficient energy extraction. 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. With an estimated peak spectral brightness of ≈1 × 1023 photons/s mm2 mrad2 0.01% bandwidth) this tabletop laser is one of the brightest soft-x-ray sources to date.