Demonstration of the ultrafast nature of laser produced betatron radiation

Kim Ta Phuoc (1) , Romuald Fitour (1) , Amar Tafzi (1) , T. Garl (1) , N. Artemiev (1) , Rahul Shah (1) , F. Albert (1) , Davide Boschetto (1) , Antoine Rousse (1) , D-E. Kim (2) , A. Pukhov (3) , Vasily Seredov (3) , I. Kostyukov (4)

1 LOA - Laboratoire d'optique appliquée
2 Laser Science Laboratory-Department of Physics
3 Institut für Theoretische Physik
4 Insitute for Applied Physics

This Letter aims to demonstrate the ultrafast nature of laser produced betatron radiation and its potential for application experiments. An upper estimate of the betatron x-ray pulse duration has been obtained by performing a time-resolved x-ray diffraction experiment: The ultrafast nonthermal melting of a semiconductor crystal (InSb) has been used to trigger the betatron x-ray beam diffracted from the surface. An x-ray pulse duration of less than 1 ps at full width half-maximum (FWHM) has been measured with a best fit obtained for 100 fs FWHM.

Keywords: high-speed optical techniques; plasma light propagation; plasma X-ray sources; plasma diagnostics

Domains: Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph]

Kim Ta Phuoc, Romuald Fitour, Amar Tafzi, T. Garl, N. Artemiev, et al.. Demonstration of the ultrafast nature of laser produced betatron radiation. Physics of Plasmas, 2007, 14 (8), pp.080701. ⟨10.1063/1.2754624⟩. ⟨hal-00573709⟩