Spatial coherence properties of a compact and ultrafast laser-produced plasma keV x-ray source

Davide Boschetto (1) , G. Mourou (1) , Antoine Rousse (1) , A. Mordovanakis (2, 3) , Bixue Hou (2, 3) , J. Nees (2, 3) , D. Kumah (4) , R. Clarke (4)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 FOCUS Center
3 Center for Ultrafast Optical Science
4 Applied Physics Program

The authors use Fresnel diffraction from knife-edges to demonstrate the spatial coherence of a tabletop ultrafast x-ray source produced by laser-plasma interaction. Spatial coherence is achieved in the far field by producing micrometer-scale x-ray spot dimensions. The results show an x-ray source size of 6 μm that leads to a transversal coherence length of 20 μm at a distance of 60 cm from the source. Moreover, they show that the source size is limited by the spatial spread of the absorbed laser energy.

Keywords: plasma production by laser; plasma X-ray sources; high-speed optical techniques; Fresnel diffraction; light coherence; plasma light propagation

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

Davide Boschetto, G. Mourou, Antoine Rousse, A. Mordovanakis, Bixue Hou, et al.. Spatial coherence properties of a compact and ultrafast laser-produced plasma keV x-ray source. Applied Physics Letters, 2007, 90 (1), pp.011106. ⟨10.1063/1.2426941⟩. ⟨hal-00516670⟩