Progress on Collisionally Pumped Optical-Field-Ionization Soft X-Ray Lasers

Stéphane Sebban (1) , Tomas Mocek (1) , I. Bettaibi (1) , B. Cros (2) , G. Maynard (2) , A. Butler (3) , A. J. Gonzalves (3) , C.M. Mckenna (3) , D.J. Spence (3) , S.M. Hooker (3) , L. M. Upcraft (1) , P. Breger (4) , P. Agostini (4) , S. Le Pape (1) , Philippe Zeitoun (1) , C. Valentin (1) , Philippe Balcou (1) , David Ros (5) , S. Kazamias (5) , A. Klisnick (5) , G. Jamelot (5) , B. Rus (6) , J.F. Wyart (7)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 LPGP - Laboratoire de physique des gaz et des plasmas
3 Department of Physics [Oxford]
4 SPAM - Service des Photons, Atomes et Molécules
5 LIXAM - Laboratoire d'interaction du rayonnement X avec la matière
6 Department of X Ray Lasers
7 LAC - Laboratoire Aimé Cotton

We present the status of optical field ionization soft X-ray lasers. The amplifying medium is generated by focusing a high-energy circularly polarized 30-fs 10-Hz Ti: sapphire laser system in a gaseous medium. Using xenon or krypton, strong laser emission at 41.8 and 32.8 nm, respectively, has been observed. After presenting the basis of the physics, we present recent characterization of the sources as well as dramatic improvement of their performances using the waveguiding technique.

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

Stéphane Sebban, Tomas Mocek, I. Bettaibi, B. Cros, G. Maynard, et al.. Progress on Collisionally Pumped Optical-Field-Ionization Soft X-Ray Lasers. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, 2004, 10 (6), pp.1351-1362. ⟨10.1109/JSTQE.2004.838039⟩. ⟨hal-00522516⟩