Abstract

A major drawback of laser-plasma soft x-ray sources is the emission of debris. Thus, fragile components must be positioned far away from the source, resulting in low x-ray flux. We have investigated two debris shields: localized miniature gas jets and thin aluminium films. Both methods are developed to eliminate the residual debris from the droplet target laser-plasma x-ray source.¹ This 10-Hz, high-brightness, line-emitting source utilises 10-µm ethanol droplets as target. The source produces 200300 times less debris than other low-debris targets, such as the thin film tape target.² Furthermore, the debris seems to be dominated by ions and very small clusters while larger fragments are significantly reduced. This allows efficient debris elimination by two simple methods that both show high transmission for x- rays in the water window.

© 1994 IEEE