Abstract

The advent of table-top (T²) lasers capable of generating picosecond/subpicosecond pulses has permitted the study of laser-target interactions at ultra-high irradiances (>10¹⁸ W/cm²). Many experiments have been concerned with incoherent X-ray emission and the development of plasmas and ultrashort pulse light sources. Plasmas formed using long pulse lasers (10 -> 100nsec.) are known to be brightest at extreme-UV (XUV) photon energies with pulsewidths which are comparable to the laser pulse duration. In particular it was observed many years ago that rare-earth and 5d metal plasmas can produce clean ‘line-free’ continua well suited to photoabsorption studies [1]. We have recently reported the results of an experiment, motivated by the above developments, in which a picosecond laser driver is used to generate 'line-free' XUV continuum emission from high-atomic number plasmas [2].

© 1998 IEEE