X-ray radiation of clusters irradiated by ultrafast, high-intensity laser pulses

Fukuda, Yuji; Akahane, Yutaka; Aoyama, Makoto; Inoue, Norihiro*; Ueda, Hideki; Kishimoto, Yasuaki; Yamakawa, Koichi; Faenov, A. Y.*; Magunov, A. I.*; Pikuz, T. A.*; Skobelev, I. Y.*; Abdallah, J. Jr.*; Csanak, G.*; Boldarev, A. S.*; Gasilov, V. A.*

High resolution X-ray emission spectra of plasma created by laser irradiation of rare-gas (Ar, Kr, Xe) clusters have been measured at laser intensities over 10 W/cm and 30-fs pulse duration. To make these measurements possible, in addition to the effort to decrease a prepulse intensity using Pockels cell switches, micron-size clusters were produced using a specially designed conical nozzle. The Boltzmann equation and a detailed collisional radiative model are solved simultaneously as a function of time to model the time integrated X-ray spectra of the transient plasma. The results are quantitatively in good agreement with the experimentally observed X-ray emission spectra of Ar clusters.