Optimization toward a high-average-brightness soft-x-ray laser pumped at grazing incidence.

Abstract

We report the near-field imaging characterization of a $10\mathrm{Hz}$ Ni-like $18.9\mathrm{nm}$ molybdenum soft-x-ray laser pumped in a grazing incidence pumping (GRIP) geometry with a table-top laser driver. We investigate the effect of varying the GRIP angle on the spatial behavior of the soft-x-ray laser source. After multiparameter optimization, we were able to find conditions to generate routinely a high-repetition-rate soft-x-ray laser with an energy level of up to $3\mu \mathrm{J}$/pulse and to $6\times {10}^{17}\text{\hspace{0.17em} photons}∕\mathrm{s}∕{\mathrm{mm}}^2∕{\mathrm{mrad}}^2$/(0.1% bandwidth) average brightness and $1\times {10}^{28}\text{\hspace{0.17em} photons}∕\mathrm{s}∕{\mathrm{mm}}^2∕{\mathrm{mrad}}^2$/(0.1% bandwidth) peak brightness.