Liquid jet target system for laser-plasma interactions at kHz repetition rate

Abstract

We have developed a compact liquid target setup that produces a continuous ø50 µm cylindrical water jet, capable of operating at high vacuum. It has been tested with a commercial ultrashort-pulse laser in a series of proof-of-principle laser-driven ion acceleration and x-ray generation experiments at repetition rates up to 1 kHz. In optimized conditions, measurements by the time-of-flight (TOF) method have demonstrated a proton signal cut-off energy of 179±9 keV. The laser-generated x-ray emission was characterized in the range 2-36 keV and used as excitation for x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) measurements.