Abstract
Short-pulse high-intensity lasers interacting with solid targets make possible the study of a new class of plasmas.1 They are unique because during the ultrashort laser pulse relatively little expansion occurs and the density scale length remains much less than the laser wavelength. This makes possible the deposition of a significant amount of the laser energy at densities much greater than the critical density, which is then efficiently converted into heat, ionization, and subsequently x ray emission, either through de-excitation or recombination. The x-ray pulse will be extremely bright because of the high density, the small dimensions of the laser spot size, and the ultrashort x-ray pulse width. The latter is due to rapid cooling by expansion and diffusion, which results from the steep temperature and density gradients, and the high collision rates at high density. These bright compact ultrashort- pulse x-rays have applications in time-resolved diffraction, holography, spectroscopy, microscopy or radiography studies of transient biological or physical phenomena.
© 1994 Optical Society of America
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