One long and two short pumping pulses control for plasma x-ray amplifier optimization

Abstract

Development of efficient soft x-ray laser plasma amplifiers adapted to seeded operation, requires a better control over amplifier transverse spatial extent, brilliance control and gain lifetime. Here it is shown that pumping the plasma amplifier with one long and two short pump pulses (1L2S) provides advantages in terms of control for the specified parameters in the case of Ni-like Ag x-ray laser. Also, significant tunability of the gain lifetime in the 1L2S pumping scheme for Ne-like Ti x-ray laser is observed. Direct harmonics seeding and chirped harmonics seeding amplification approaches may benefit from the control of the gain lifetime, in terms of better use of the pump energy and as a way to reduce the amplified spontaneous emission in x-ray lasers.

High-energy Nd:YAG laser system with arbitrary sub-nanosecond pulse shaping capability

“…Shaping on the nanosecond to millisecond timescales is generally done by acousto-or electro-optic modulation and is mostly aimed towards ablation mechanics in, for example, micromachining [4,5]. Other fields employing temporal pulse shaping based on varying methods of pulse combining include fusion ignition [6], x-ray lasers [7], and laser-produced plasma (LPP) extremeultraviolet (EUV) sources [8].…”