Laser-plasma SXR/EUV sources: adjustment of radiation parameters for specific applications

Abstract

In this work soft X-ray (SXR) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) laser-produced plasma (LPP) sources employing Nd:YAG laser systems of different parameters are presented. First of them is a 10-Hz EUV source, based on a double-stream gaspuff target, irradiated with the 3-ns/0.8J laser pulse. In the second one a 10 ns/10 J/10 Hz laser system is employed and the third one utilizes the laser system with the pulse shorten to approximately 1 ns. Using various gases in the gas puff targets it is possible to obtain intense radiation in different wavelength ranges. This way intense continuous radiation in a wide spectral range as well as quasi-monochromatic radiation was produced. To obtain high EUV or SXR fluence the radiation was focused using three types of grazing incidence collectors and a multilayer Mo/Si collector. First of them is a multfoil gold plated collector consisted of two orthogonal stacks of ellipsoidal mirrors forming a double-focusing device. The second one is the ellipsoidal collector being part of the axisymmetrical ellipsoidal surface. Third of the collectors is composed of two aligned axisymmetrical paraboloidal mirrors optimized for focusing of SXR radiation. The last collector is an off-axis ellipsoidal multilayer Mo/Si mirror allowing for efficient focusing of the radiation in the spectral region centered at λ = 13.5 ± 0.5 nm. In this paper spectra of unaltered EUV or SXR radiation produced in different LPP source configurations together with spectra and fluence values of focused radiation are presented. Specific configurations of the sources were assigned to various applications.