Development of a laser-pumped X-ray laser with full spatial coherence

Nagashima, Keisuke; Tanaka, Momoko; Nishikino, Masaharu; Kishimoto, Maki; Kado, Masataka; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Hasegawa, Noboru; Ochi, Yoshihiro; Sukegawa, Kota*; Tai, R.

A laser-pumped X-ray laser with full spatial coherence has been developed for the first time. This X-ray laser has the wavelength of 13.9 nm and the beam divergence of 0.2 mrad. In the experiment, a seeding light from the first laser medium was amplified in the second medium, which worked as an active spatial filter. The observed beam divergence was close to the diffraction limited value within a factor of two. The seeding light was amplified in the second medium without refraction influence. The gain region of the second medium was far away from the target surface compared with that of the first medium and located in the considerably low density region. From the measurement of visibility, it was found that the spatial coherent length is longer than the beam diameter. It means that this X-ray laser beam is full spatial coherent.