Short Soft X-Ray Sources

We report on the characterization of pulsed soft X-rays emitted from laser-produced plasma. The plasma was generated by 40, 80 and 120 mJ laser energies provided by a pulsed KrF excimer laser focused on pure Si, Cu and Ta targets. The utilized detector was a very sensitive Faraday cup which opportunely biased was able to record time resolved signals of X-rays and to estimate their energy. The found X-rays energy values were compared with the ion temperature of the plasma obtained by fitting the time resolved ion current signals with a shifted Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution. The results showed that the laser produced Ta plasma induced bunch of X-rays having in average the highest energy values and it was also characterized by ion temperature higher than the ones of the laser produced Si and Cu plasmas.