Abstract

The use of laser-produced plasmas as soft x-ray sources has been investigated for a long time. Laser pulse durations were normally of the order of nanoseconds, and high peak powers were consequently only available at very large laser facilities. This situation changed with the development of terawatt laser systems based on the chirped-pulse amplification technique. With these laser systems, peak powers in the terawatt range became available in ultra-short pulses, leading to focused intensities well above 10¹⁷ W·cm⁻².

© 1997 Optical Society of America