Study of X-ray emission enhancement via a high-contrast femtosecond laser interacting with a solid foil

Chen, L.-M.; Kando, Masaki; Xu, M. H.*; Li, Y.-T.*; Koga, J. K.; Chen, M.*; Xu, H.*; Yuan, X.-H.*; Dong, Q. L.*; Sheng, Z. M.*; Bulanov, S. V.; Kato, Yoshiaki ; Zhang, J.*; Tajima, Toshiki

We observed the increase of the K- X-ray conversion efficiency (hK) produced by a 60 fs frequency doubled high contrast laser pulse focused on Cu foil, compared to the case of the fundamental laser pulse. hK shows a strong dependence on the nonlinearly skewed shape of the laser pulse. It reaches a maximum for a 100 fs negatively skewed pulse. The electron spectrum shaping contributes to the enhancement of hK. Simulations demonstrate that high contrast lasers are an effective tool for optimizing the X-ray emission, via the enhanced Vacuum Heating mechanism.