Short-pulse, high-intensity laser-plasma interactions are investigated experimentally with temporally and spectrally resolved soft x-ray diagnostics. We demonstrate that the pulse width of the laser-produced x rays emitted from solid targets may b e varied down to the picosecond time scale by adjusting the incident laser ux. Bright, picosecond, broadband emission, characteristic of a short-scale-length, high-density plasma, is produced only when a high laser contrast (10 10) is used. The results are found to be in qualitative agreement with both the predictions of a simple model of radiation from a collisionally dominated atomic system and the results from a numerical simulation.
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