Abstract

Light intensity of a few times 10¹⁶ W/cm² can be generated with femtosecond laser pulses of only about a millijoule of energy. The interaction of such extremely intense ultrashort laser pulses with solid materials leads to the formation of a plasma in a time given by the pulse duration, which may be shorter than the time scales of energy and mass transport. The resulting new regime of very energetic, short-lived, solid density laser plasmas may be interesting for the generation of ultrashort X-ray pulses and for the development of new X-ray laser schemes.

© 1990 Optical Society of America