Compact laser-driven plasma X-ray source for time-resolved diffraction, spectroscopy and imaging experiments at ELI Beamlines.

Abstract

In this work, experimentally measured characteristics of a kilohertz laser-driven Cu plasma X-ray source that was recently commissioned at the ELI Beamlines facility are reported. The source can be driven either by an in-house developed high-contrast sub-20 fs near-infrared terawatt laser based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification technology or by a more conventional Ti:sapphire laser delivering 12 mJ and 45 fs pulses. The X-ray source parameters obtained with the two driving lasers are compared. A measured photon flux of the order up to 10¹² Kα photons s^-1 (4π)^-1 is reported. Furthermore, experimental platforms for ultrafast X-ray diffraction and X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy based on the reported source are described.