Experiments with SPRITE 12 ps facility

Abstract

ABSTRACT Lateral and axial thermal energy transport in laser-plasma interactions has been studied using a short (12 psec) pre-pulse free KrF pumped Raman laser pulse ( = 268 nm) of low beam divergence. A new method of producing narrow line foci using random phase plates was employed to study the plasma conditions required to generate high gain, short wavelength recombination X-ray lasers. In addition, the laser energy was focusedinto a small focal spot (8 tim) for higher intensity (1-2 x 1017 cm2) interaction studies. 1 . INTRODUCTION Recent numerical simulation studies have shown that the gain obtained in recombination X-ray laser experiments increases for shorter wavelength, higher Z materials when the pulse length of the heating laser pulse is reduced(1). It has also been shown that the gain increases when the line width is narrowed(2). It is therefore of great interest to study the lateral and axial thermal energy transport for short pulse,narrow line focus irradiation, and to determine whether lateral energy transport will