title: High-repetition-rate grazing-incidence pumped x-ray laser operating at 18.9 nm.
abstract: We have demonstrated a 10 Hz Ni-like Mo x-ray laser operating at 18.9 nm with 150 mJ total pump energy by employing a novel pumping scheme. The grazing-incidence scheme is described, where a picosecond pulse is incident at a grazing angle to a Mo plasma column produced by a slab target irradiated by a 200 ps laser pulse. This scheme uses refraction of the short pulse at a predetermined electron density to increase absorption to pump a specific gain region. The higher coupling efficiency inherent to this scheme allows a reduction in the pump energy where 70 mJ long pulse energy and 80 mJ short pulse energy are sufficient to produce lasing at a 10 Hz repetition rate. Under these conditions and by optimizing the delay between the pulses, we achieve strong amplification and close to saturation for 4 mm long targets.
authors.affiliation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Keenan
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dunn
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.forename: D F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Price
authors.forename: R F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: V N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Shlyaptsev