Development and applications of plasma X-ray lasers

Nishikino, Masaharu; Ochi, Yoshihiro; Hasegawa, Noboru; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Ishino, Masahiko; Imazono, Takashi; Tanaka, Momoko; Sato, Katsutoshi; Yamamoto, Minoru; Oba, Toshiyuki; Kaihori, Takeshi; Kishimoto, Maki; Sasaki, Akira; Faenov, A.*; Pikuz, T. A.*; Namikawa, Kazumichi; Suemoto, Toru; Terakawa, Kota*; Tomita, Takuro*; Nishimura, Hiroaki*; Sarukura, Nobuhiko*; Teshima, Teruki*; Namba, Shinichi*

Recent Progress in the development of laser-driven plasma soft X-ray laser (XRL) and the applications are presented. In the source development, TOPAZ laser using Nd:glass zigzag slab amplifiers with 10 J, 0.1 Hz repetition-rate routinely provides the fully spatial coherent X-ray laser at 13.9 nm for the applications. The bright, coherent, and picoseconds X-ray pulse can be used in a variety of applications such as X-ray speckle measurement and interferometer for probing materials, diffraction imaging, nano-scale fabrication, radiation biology, and so on. In order to extend the use of XRLs, now we are constructing new XRL beam lines for the optical pump and XRL probe experiment.