Polydisperse inter-electrode plasma of Pd nanoclusters as a random cavity for x-ray spontaneous emission bursts

Abstract

It is demonstrated experimentally that polydisperse Pd plasma of low energy (∼1 J) nanosecond vacuum discharge operating in a virtual cathode regime becomes an effective stochastic cavity in hard x-ray domain. A diffusion model of stochastic propagation of spontaneous x-ray radiation in the volume of randomly located reflecting clusters is developed also. The model provides qualitative explanation of both the experimentally observed effects of high-intensity bursts and partial ‘trapping’ of x-ray radiation. The x-ray burst emerges when photons are stored inside the plasma volume followed by instant release at the end of the discharge while the trapping regime corresponds to the slow developing x-ray diffusion with the characteristic time larger than the discharge duration. The results obtained are compared qualitatively with well-known concept of Letokhov’s random laser.