RESUMO
Investigations of emission of harmonics from argon gas jet irradiated by 700 fs, 5 mJ pulses from a KrF laser are presented. Harmonics conversion was optimized by varying the experimental geometry and the nozzle size. For the collection of the harmonic radiation silicon and solar-blind diamond semiconductor detectors equipped with charge preamplifiers were applied. The possibility of using a single-crystal CVD diamond detector for separate measurement of the 3rd harmonic in the presence of a strong pumping radiation was explored. Our experiments show that the earlier suggested 0.7% conversion efficiency can really be obtained, but only in the case when phase matching is optimized with an elongated gas target length corresponding to the length of coherence.
RESUMO
We demonstrate a neonlike argon-ion x-ray laser, using a short-pulse laser-irradiated gas puff target. The gas puff target was formed by pulsed injection of gas from a high-pressure solenoid valve through a nozzle in the form of a narrow slit and irradiated with a combination of long, 600-ps and short, 6-ps high-power laser pulses with a total of 10 J of energy in a traveling-wave excitation scheme. Lasing was observed on the 3p (1)S(0)?3s (1)P(1) transition at 46.9 nm and the 3d (1)P(1)?3p (1)P(1) transition at 45.1 nm. A gain of 11 cm(-1) was measured on these transitions for targets up to 0.9 cm long.
RESUMO
Stokes pulses of high energy and high-average power were obtained by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) compression of long Nd:YAG laser pulses. The SBS medium used in the single-cell compressor was liquid ultrafiltered Fluorinert FC-75 fluorocarbon. An output pulse duration of 0.9 ns and a peak-power enhancement by 1 order of magnitude were observed for 10-ns, 0.57-J input pulses at a 10-Hz repetition rate. The compressor internal SBS efficiency reached a value of eta(SBS) = 94% and the overall device efficiency a value of eta(dev) = 87%; both values are the highest reported so far to the best of our knowledge. The simple single-cell SBS geometry provided excellent energy and pointing stability of the Stokes pulse. Its temporal shape turned out to be somewhat less stable. The SBS process also partially improved the laser beam quality. The Stokes pulses proved to be capable of generating radiation in the extreme-ultraviolet and soft-x-ray regions over a period of two months without any significant output deterioration.
RESUMO
We propose a new x-ray laser mechanism that uses radiation from the strongest 3d ? 2p Ne-like resonance line in an optically thick plasma to radiatively drive population from the Ne-like ground state to the 3d state, which then lases to two 3p states. Collisional mixing of the 3p states with nearby 3s and 3d states depopulates the lower laser states. Modeling is presented for this mechanism in Ne-like Ar, and in experiments we observe one potential 3d ? 3p lasing transition at 45.1 nm in Ne-like Ar.
