Scaling studies with the dual crystal spectrometer at the OMEGA-EP laser facility

Abstract

The dual crystal spectrometer (DCS) is an approved diagnostic at the OMEGA and the OMEGA-EP laser facilities for the measurement of high energy x-rays in the 11-90 keV energy range, e.g., for verification of the x-ray spectrum of backlighter targets of point projection radiography experiments. DCS has two cylindrically bent transmission crystal channels with image plate detectors at distances behind the crystals close to the size of the respective Rowland circle diameters taking advantage of the focusing effect of the cylindrically bent geometry. DCS, with a source to crystal distance of 1.2 m, provides the required energy dispersion for simultaneous detection of x-rays in a low energy channel (11-45 keV) and a high-energy channel (19-90 keV). A scaling study is described for varied pulse length with unchanged laser conditions (energy, focusing). The study shows that the Kα line intensity is not strongly dependent on the length of the laser pulse.