30th EPS Conference on Contr. Fusion and Plasma Phys., St. Petersburg, 7-11 July 2003 ECA Vol.

27A, O-1.2C

Observation of advanced 18.9 nm soft X-ray laser and harmonics and subharmonics mixing in femtosecond radiation pumped plasmas
H. Kuroda1, R. A. Ganeev1,2, . Baba1, M. Suzuki1, M. Turu1, T. Ozaki3, A. Ishizawa3
1

Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8581, Japan
2

NPO Akadempribor, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, Akademgorodok, Tashkent 700125, Uzbekistan

NTT Basic Research Laboratories, NTT Corporation, 3-1, Morinosato Wakamiya, Atsugi-shi, Kanagawa 243-0198, Japan
1. Introduction

The developments and studies of various schemes of temporal population inversions in collisional processes of ions have shown the perspectives of transient gain amplification as one of the promising candidates for collisionally pumped soft x-ray lasers [1,2]. Another source of short wavelength radiation is the high-order harmonic generation that is the result of the nonlinear oscillation of a free electron driven by the high-intensity laser at vacuum-surface interfaces. The emission of radiation near 3/2 frequency has long been used as the indicator of the two-plasmon decay in laser plasma. These studies were carried out using nanosecond and picosecond radiation. The only investigation of 2 and 3/2 femtosecond harmonic generation was published recently by Veisz et al [3]. In this paper, a demonstration of Ni-like Mo 18.9 nm soft x-ray lasing with a small divergence is presented and investigated in transient gain amplification scheme with longitudinal pumping. Experimental studies of blueshift and polarization properties of harmonic generation from solid surfaces in conditions of small scale length (L < 0.1) are presented. We also investigated backscattered 2 and 3/2 harmonics generation using femtosecond radiation operated at 10-Hz pulse repetition rate. 2. Soft x-ray generation using transient gain scheme in Ni-like Mo plasma A long pulse (300-ps) from a tabletop, 1.06-m hybrid Nd:glass Ti:sappire CPA laser was focused by cylindrical lens onto the Mo target to form 100 m 2 mm line focus, while the short pulse (475-fs) was sent through the laser-produced plasma in rectangular direction with total pulse energy of 200 mJ. The IR and X-ray radiation were propagated through the slit of X-ray spectrometer. Our studies were performed with the prolonged (2 mm) Mo plasma. We investigated the dependences of 18.9-nm radiation on intensity of femtosecond radiation and delay between picosecond and femtosecond radiation. The spectrum of Mo plasma dominated by

30th EPS Conference on Contr. Fusion and Plasma Phys., St. Petersburg, 7-11 July 2003 ECA Vol. 27A, O-1.2C

2 of 4

the 3d94d1So 3d94p1P1 laser line of 18.9 nm. Our estimations of angular characteristics of x-ray laser spot have shown that the last not surpass 110-3 rad [4]. In the next set of experiments we used spherical lens instead of 18.9 nm 180 cylindrical one for generation of 19.44 nm 160 140 molybdenum plasma by a long pulse 18.09 nm 120 [5]. The spectrum of Mo plasma 2 100 without longitudinal pumping of 80 60 1 femtosecond radiation consisted of 40 continuum in the range of 19 nm with 20 16 18 20 22 steep drop of intensity at the Wavelength, nm wavelength of cut-off transmission Fig. 1. Spectrum of the Ni-like molybdenum X-ray edge of aluminum filter. In the case of laser spectrum around 19 nm. The boron spectra of third-order 6.03 nm and fourth-order 4.86 nm longitudinal pumping a visible 18.9 resonant lines are presented for comparison. nm spot was generated (Fig. 1,1). The divergence of this spot was 3 10-3 rad. The bandwidth of x-ray laser line was measured to be 0.3 nm. The spectra of third-order 6.03 nm and fourth-order 4.86 nm resonant boron lines (Fig. 1,2) registered without Al filter are presented for comparison. The conversion efficiency from the IR radiation to x-ray laser line was 2 10-7 [5]. 3. Femtosecond laser induced harmonic generation from solid surface plasma The Ti:Sapphire - Nd: glass hybrid CPA laser delivered 200 mJ energy in 475 fs pulse and produced a maximal peak intensity on the target of 3 1017 W cm-2. The laser pulse was focused onto the surface of a solid target at an incidence angle of 45o relative to the target normal with either s- or p-polarization selected using a /2 wave plate. The target was a 0.1 m layer of aluminum deposited on a glass substrate. Harmonics generated from the plasma surface in the specular direction were spectrally dispersed by a vacuum spectrometer. At a driving laser intensity of 1017 W cm-2, the conversion efficiencies of the second and fifth harmonics were 1 10-6 and 4 10-8, respectively [4]. Figure 2 shows second (a) and fifth (b) harmonic yield dependence on the pump laser polarization. We found that for both harmonics, the harmonic yield dependence on the pump laser polarization decreases when the laser intensity exceeds 1 1017 W cm-2. Here Ip/Is is the ratio of p-polarization induced and s-polarization induced intensities of generated harmonics. Some different processes are involved in decreasing of Ip/Is ratio with the growth of laser intensity. One of them is the rippling caused by Rayleigh-Taylor-like instability at the critical density surface. Another possible explanation for the decrease Ip/Is ratio is the Faraday rotation effect due to
Intensity, a. u.

30th EPS Conference on Contr. Fusion and Plasma Phys., St. Petersburg, 7-11 July 2003 ECA Vol. 27A, O-1.2C

3 of 4

the influence of spontaneous magnetic fields generated within the plasma [4]. We also observed the blueshift of harmonics using p-polarized pump radiation. The second harmonic was blueshifted by 1.7 nm, and the fifth harmonic was
28 24 20
2

Ip / I s

16 12 8 4 0 17 1.4x10

1.6x10

17

1.8x10

17

2.0x10

17

2.2x10
-2

17

2.4x10

17

Laser intensity (W cm )

6
5

Ip / Is

blueshifted by 5.3 nm at the intensity of 1 1017 W cm-2. It was found that the shift becomes larger in proportion to the harmonic order. p-polarization induced spectral shift was found to be larger respectively to one induced by s-polarized pump. The blueshift was interpreted as the collisionless absorption due to the anomalous skin effect [6]. 4. Backscattered 2 and 3 /2 harmonics

10

17

Laser intensity (W cm )

-2

Ti:sapphire laser (=795 nm, E=10 mJ, Fig. 2. The (a) second and (b) fifth harmonic t=150 fs, 10-Hz pulse repetition rate) was intensity dependence on the pump laser 17 polarization at the intensities of 1 10 W focused on the surface of targets placed in cm-2 . vacuum chamber. The radiation interacted with target surfaces at the incidence angle of o 45 . We analyzed the characteristics of generated radiation at specular (90o) and backscattered (180o) directions. The targets with different atomic numbers (Z) were investigated at these studies (boron, graphite, polyethylene, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten). The maximal intensity of pump radiation at the target surfaces were measured to be 21016 W cm-2. We observed backscattered harmonic radiation at the next conditions. The target was shifted to ensure that radiation interacts with fresh surface. After that we opened the shutter and the 10-Hz pulse repetition rate radiation was interacted with target without its moving. After 1 s to 5 s from the beginning of interaction the backscattered 2 and 3/2 harmonics were observed. No 3/2 harmonic generation was observed in case of single shots as well as in case of variations of target position at pulse repetition rate conditions. In these experiments, the low-divergence, collimated, and backscattered harmonics were observed. The characteristic peculiarity of the spectra from light targets (B, C, CH2) was the considerably suppressed plasma radiation in respect with the moderate (Cr) and heavy (Mo, W) targets. We estimated the efficiencies of 2 and 3/2 harmonic generation

of femtosecond radiation The p-polarized radiation of CPA

30th EPS Conference on Contr. Fusion and Plasma Phys., St. Petersburg, 7-11 July 2003 ECA Vol. 27A, O-1.2C

4 of 4

observed from low-Z targets as 10-5 and 210-6, respectively. The 3/2 emission was red-shifted in some of studies with low-Z targets and was mostly centered at exact position of 3/2 harmonic of fundamental radiation. At the same time the 3/2 radiation from Cr target was blue-shifted (=10 nm). The 2 radiation was dominantly blue-shifted both for low- and high-Z materials. This shift was increased with increasing atomic number of the material. We measured the harmonic yield as a function of pulse duration. No variations in reflectivity of fundamental radiation were observed in that case. The efficiency of 2 harmonic generation was steadily dropped for longer pulses. The 3/2 yield was slightly decreased in that case. 5. Conclusions In conclusion, x-ray laser (18.9 nm) generation from longitudinally pumped Ni-like molybdenum plasma was observed for pulse energies of pumped radiation of few hundred milijoules. We have demonstrated the small divergence of the tabletop x-ray laser. Our results on the polarization studies of harmonic generation from solid surface plasma show the variations of nonlinear optical response for orthogonal polarization waves when the incident radiation intensity exceeds 1017 W cm-2. We observed blue-shifts for high harmonics (up to fifth). We investigated the backscattered 2 and 3/2 harmonics at interaction of femtosecond radiation (=795 nm, t=150 fs, 10-Hz pulse repetition rate) with various targets. The harmonics were generated with 10-Hz repetition rate without changing the position of targets. References 1. P. V. Nickles, V. N. Shlyaptsev, M. Kalachnikov, M. Schnurer, I. Will, W. Sandner, Phys. Rev. Lett., 78, 2748 (1997). 2. R. Li, T. Ozaki, T. Kanai, and H. Kuroda, Phys. Rev. E, 57, 7093 (1998). 3. L. Veisz, W. Theobald, T. Feurer, H. Schillinger, P. Gibbon, R. Sauerbrey, Phys. Plasmas, 9, 3197 (2002). 4. H. Kuroda, T. Ozaki, A. Ishizawa, R. A. Ganeev, T. Kanai, J. Luminesc., 100, 291 (2002). 5. T. Ozaki, R. A. Ganeev, A. Ishizawa, T. Kanai, H. Kuroda, Phys. Rev. Lett., 89, 253902-1 (2002). 6. A.Ishizawa, R.A.Ganeev, T.Kanai, H.Kuroda, T.Ozaki, Phys. Rev. E, 66, 026414 (2002).