E. Granados

Highly coherent injection-seeded 13.2 nm tabletop soft x-ray laser

We report a dramatic improvement of the spatial coherence and beam divergence (0.66 mrad) of a 13.2 nm wavelength Ni-like Cd tabletop laser by injection seeding the soft x-ray laser amplifier with high-harmonics pulses generated in a Ne gas jet. This phase coherent laser is an attractive light source for at-wavelength interferometry of extreme ultraviolet lithography optics and other applications.

Phase-Coherent Injection-Seeded Soft X-rayLasers at Wavelengths Down to 13.2 nm

Lasers: We have created lasers with operating properties that we never would have dreamed of when the technology was invented 50 years ago.

Generation of a 1 picosecond soft x-ray laser pulses from an injection-seeded plasma amplifier

Phase-coherent soft x-ray laser pulses of 1.13 ± 0.47 ps duration were generated by injection-seeding a solid-target Ne-like Ti plasma amplifier with high harmonic pulses. This is the shortest pulse duration reported to date from a table-top soft x-ray laser amplifier.

Picosecond Soft X-Ray Laser Pulses from an Injection-Seeded Plasma Amplifier

Phase-coherent soft x-ray laser pulses of 1.13 ± 0.47 ps duration were generated by injection-seeding a solid-target Ne-like Ti plasma amplifier with high harmonic pulses. This is the shortest pulse duration reported to date from a table-top soft x-ray laser amplifier.

Phase coherent, injection-seeded table-top soft x-ray lasers at wavelengths down to 13.9 nm

We have realized the first demonstration of soft X-ray lasers with essentially full spatial and temporal coherence at sub-20 nm wavelengths by high harmonic seeding of soft X-ray plasma amplifiers created by irradiation of solid targets.

High brightness injection-seeded table-top soft x-ray laser using a dense plasma amplifier

We demonstrated the generation of an extremely bright lambda=32.6 nm laser beam with high spatial coherence by saturated amplification of high harmonic seed pulses in a soft X-ray laser plasma amplifier created heating a titanium target.

High-brightness tabletop soft X-ray lasers at high repetition rate: injection-seeding of solid target plasma amplifiers and other developments

We have recently demonstrated high repetition rate tabletop lasers operating at wavelengths as short as 10.9 nm based on collisional transient excitation of ions in plasmas created by laser heating of solid targets. As a further step in the development of these lasers into very high brightness and fully coherent soft x-ray sources, we have demonstrated injection seeding of the amplifiers with high harmonic seed pulses. We report results of an experiment in which a 32.6 nm Ne-like Ti amplifier was used to amplify a seed pulse from the 25th harmonic of Ti:Sapphire into the gain saturation regime. Simultaneous amplification of the 27th harmonic at 30.1 nm was also observed. The seeded soft x-ray laser beam was measured to approach full spatial coherence. We have demonstrated that this scheme is scalable to shorter wavelengths and that is capable of producing extremely bright soft x-ray laser pulse with essentially full coherence.

Compact High Repetition Rate Soft X‐Ray Lasers: A Doorway To High Intensity Coherent Soft X‐Ray Science On A Table‐Top

We discuss recent advances in high repetition rate table‐top soft x‐ray lasers that allow the generation of laser beams in the 25–100 eV photon energy region with peak spectral brightness that surpasses by several orders of magnitude that of undulators in third generation synchrotrons, enabling new applications. These advances include the demonstration of 5 Hz repetition rate table‐top soft x‐ray lasers that operate in the gain‐saturation regime to produce intense beams at wavelengths ranging from 13.2 to 32.6 nm, and the observation of lasing at wavelengths down to 10.9 nm. The results were obtained by collisional electron impact excitation of highly ionized atoms in dense plasmas efficiently heated with picosecond optical laser pulses of only 1 J energy. Further improvement in the brightness of these compact sources was obtained seeding the soft x‐ray amplifiers with high harmonic pulses. We have demonstrated the saturated amplification of high harmonic seed pulses in a dense transient collisional soft ...