Comparative single-pulse studies of self-trapped plasma channel formation in Xe and Kr cluster targets produced with 1–2 TW femtosecond 248 nm pulses reveal energy efficient channel formation (>90%) and highly robust stability for the channeled propagation in both materials. Images of the channel morphology produced by Thomson scattering from the electron density and direct visualization of the Xe(M) and Kr(L) x-ray emission from radiating ions illustrate the (1) channel formation, (2) the narrow region of confined trapped propagation, (3) the abrupt termination of the channel that occurs at the point the power falls below the critical power Pcr, and, in the case of Xe channels, (4) the presence of saturated absorption of Xe(M) radiation that generates an extended peripheral zone of ionization. The measured rates for energy deposition per unit length are ∼ 1.46 J cm−1 and ∼ 0.82 J cm−1 for Xe and Kr targets, respectively, and the single pulse Xe(M) energy yield is estimated to be > 50 mJ, a value indicating an efficiency >20% for ∼ 1 keV x-ray production from the incident 248 nm pulse.
The Xe(L) system is an amplifier with fundamentally different dynamic characteristics from all previously developed laser amplifiers; it represents the conceptual ideal through full utilization of the Kramers–Kronig relations that fundamentally couple the dispersive and absorptive components. The dispersive response of the system, through optimal governance of the power compression, rules the amplification and establishes a minimum gain for the amplifier. Accordingly, the amplification requires a minimum value of the dispersion to be surpassed; the corresponding gain follows automatically. As a leading consequence, since this minimum gain is sufficiently high, the key experimental observation is the uniform presence of saturated amplification signaled by strong spectral hole burning on all transitions exhibiting amplification, including double-vacancy lines. This cardinal signature demonstrates that the amplification is legislated by the saturated gain gs, not the corresponding small signal value g0. The chief outcome is that explosive dispersion yields perforce explosive amplification and the efficient generation of maximally bright coherent power.
The spectral and spatial characteristics of the Xe(L) amplifier at λ ∼ 2.9 Å determine an optimum for the scaling of the peak power with channel length. The Xe31+ and Xe32+ (3d → 2p) transition arrays represent two identical spectral optima for amplification, a property stemming from the extremum of spectral components (3245) characteristic of their electron configurations. Adroit matching of the spatial distribution of the intensity characteristic of the propagating 248 nm pulse dynamically generating the self-trapped plasma channel with the intensity required to excite selectively and efficiently the Xe31+ and Xe32+ arrays can also simultaneously maximize the spatial volume of the excitation. The net outcome of this double maximization is an amplifying channel for the optimal transitions that possesses high gain (∼100 cm−1), low losses (<10−1cm−1) and a diameter of 15−20 µm, a size sufficient to produce an x-ray pulse energy of ∼50−100 mJ from a channel having an average xenon density of ∼1020 cm−3 and a length of 1 cm. Since previous studies have experimentally demonstrated the ability to produce a saturated bandwidth of ∼60 eV, a magnitude sufficient to support a pulse duration of ∼30 as, peak powers Px ≫ 1 PW are clearly within the scaling limits of the Xe(L) system. The corresponding peak brightness scaling limit is accordingly bounded from below by Px/λ2 ≅ 1030 W cm−2 sr−1.
The triple comparison of (1) single-pulse spectral data, recorded with a CCD-equipped von Hámos spectrometer both axially and transversely;(2) axially measured time-integrated spectra registered on a film and (3) single-pulse x-ray images of the morphology of the self-trapped plasma channel, recorded simultaneously with the single-pulse spectra, establishes several leading characteristics of the saturated amplification observed on the Xe 35+ transition array at λ ∼ = 2.86 Å. The chief findings are (α) absolute positive correlation of amplification with the formation of a plasma channel, (β) a perfect spectral match of the amplified transitions in the comparison of axially recorded single-pulse and time-integrated film data and (γ ) exact spectral correspondence of both the axially registered single-pulse and timeintegrated film data with single-pulse transversely measured spectra exhibiting deep spectral hole burning at the position of the Xe 35+ array.
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