Quantitative study of 10 Hz operation of a soft x-ray laser-energy stability and target considérations

F. Lindau (1) , O. Lundh (1) , A. Persson (1) , Kevin Cassou (2) , Sophie Kazamias (2) , David Ros (2) , Fabien Ple (2) , Gérard Jamelot (2) , Annie Klisnick (2) , Sébastien de Rossi (3) , Denis Joyeux (3) , B. Zielbauer (4) , D. Ursescu (4) , T. Kuhl (4) , C.G Wahlstrom (1)

1 Department of Physics
2 LIXAM - Laboratoire d'interaction du rayonnement X avec la matière
3 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Scop
4 GSI - Helmholtz zentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH

A soft x-ray laser from Ni-like Mo, pumped in grazing incidence (GRIP), is analyzed with regard to high repetition rate operation. Reliable lasing is obtained, but with significant energy fluctuations attributed mainly to beam pointing jitter from the pump laser. Two modes of operation are compared: continuously moving target and stationary target. With a moving target the soft X-ray output is constant on average, whereas the repeated use of the same target position leads to a pulse energy which increases for several tens of shots. This effect might be caused by improved guiding of the pump laser in the formed groove and the removal, through laser ablation, of the oxide layer on the target surface.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

F. Lindau, O. Lundh, A. Persson, Kevin Cassou, Sophie Kazamias, et al.. Quantitative study of 10 Hz operation of a soft x-ray laser-energy stability and target considérations. Optics Express, 2007, 15 (15), pp.9486. ⟨hal-00558016⟩