Picosecond X-ray plasma radiation measurements

Abstract

Direct picosecond measurements of X-ray laser plasma radiation were performed with a high-speed X-ray image-converter camera (ICC). This camera operates in the single-frame mode with an exposure time ranging from 5 ns to 0.5 μs and in the streak mode with 5 × 10 9 to 5 × 10 7 cm/s streak velocities. Its temporal resolution in the streak mode was calculated to be about 7 ps. A plasma was created by focussing 10 ps 1 to 2 joule laser pulses onto a titanium target placed in a vacuum chamber. The halfwidth of the recorded X-ray pulses varied from 30 to 60 ps.