Observation and theory of X-ray mirages

Magnitskiy, S.*; Nagorskiy, N.*; Faenov, A.*; Pikuz, T.; Tanaka, Momoko; Ishino, Masahiko; Nishikino, Masaharu; Fukuda, Yuji; Kando, Masaki; Kawachi, Tetsuya; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 4, p.1936_1 - 1936_7, 2013/06

https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2923

Advent of plasma-based transient collisional excitation X-ray lasers allowed us to realize compact coherent X-ray sources, thus opening the way to a wide range of applications. Here we report the observation of unexpected concentric rings in the far-field beam profile at the output of a two-stage plasma-based X-ray laser developed in Japan Atomic Energy Agency, which can be considered as the first manifestation of a mirage phenomenon in X-rays. We have developed a method of solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations, which has allowed to find that the observed phenomenon is due to the emergence in the plasma-amplifier of X-ray mirage in the form of the phase matched coherent virtual point source. The obtained results bring a new insight into physical nature of amplification of X-ray radiation in laser-induced plasma amplifiers and open new opportunities for X-ray plasma diagnostics and extreme UV lithography.

Relativistic soft X-ray harmonics beam characterizing by high performance imaging using sub-micron resolution LiF detectors

Pikuz, T.; Faenov, A.*; Pirozhkov, A. S.; Nishikino, Masaharu; Hasegawa, Noboru; Esirkepov, T. Z.; Kotaki, Hideyuki; Hayashi, Yukio; Ogura, Koichi; Koga, J. K.; et al.

no journal, , 

X-ray coherent mirage phenomenon in two-stage X-ray lasers

Pikuz, T.; Faenov, A.*; Magnitskiy, S.*; Nagorskiy, N.*; Tanaka, Momoko; Ishino, Masahiko; Nishikino, Masaharu; Kando, Masaki; Kato, Yoshiaki*; Kawachi, Tetsuya

no journal, ,