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A laser-plasma soft X-ray microscope which is a combination of a highly intense laser-plasma soft X-ray source and a contact microscopy has been developed. We have proposed a correlative imaging method with the laser-plasma soft X-ray microscope and a fluorescence microscope to observe the same biological cells with the both microscopes at the same time. Live hydrated biological cells and cellular organelles have been observed with the correlative imaging method. Using the information of the cellular organelles obtained with the fluorescence microscope, inner structures obtained with the soft X-ray microscope are identified. Since the spatial resolution of the soft X-ray microscope is much higher than that of the fluorescence microscope, fine structures of the cellular organelles of the live biological cells have been visualized with the correlative imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Picosecond x-ray speckles experiment has been conducted with a simple setup. The source was a compact silver-plasma-based x-ray laser, with a wavelength of 13.9 nm and pulse duration of 7 ps. The sample was a single crystal of BaTiO3, with ferroelectric multi-domain structure (a/c domains). The matter correlation function, including statistical information of those randomly distributed scatterers (domains here) within the sample, was extracted by deconvolution of the speckle pattern. The instantaneous x-ray speckle technique has proved to be particularly efficient to be used to observe fast microscopic-scale phenomena that are hard to access with other methods currently. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holographic capability of a Lloyd's mirror wavefront-splitting interferometer was experimentally investigated. The radiation source was a TCE Ni-like Ag X-ray laser at 13.9 nm, routinely operated ar JAERI. The X-ray beam was focused down to a point located a few centimeters in front of the close edge of the Lloyd's mirror, in order to produce a near-spherical diverging wave a portion of which, upon reflection by the mirror, recombines with the portion of the wave propagating in free space. The holographic capability of the setup was examined in two configurations. In the first configuration, pertinent to a transmission holography, a test object consisting of a 50-µm wire was used to produce a diffracted wave encoded as holographic information inthe generated interferogram. In the second configuration, SnO[SUB2] powder with grains of ~100 nm, deposited on the Lloyd's mirror surface, was used to demonstrate a reflection hologram. The data obtained in both cases show that the Lloyd's mirror is a convenient setup for holographic probing with high spatial resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have demonstrated a high gain neonlike argon ion x-ray laser using a gas puff target. The elongated x-ray laser plasma column was produced by irradiating the gas puff target with line focused double picosecond laser pulses with a total energy of 9 J in a travelling-wave excitation scheme. Strong lasing was observed and a high gain coefficient of 18.7 cm[SUP-1] was measured on the transient collisionally excited 3p [SUP1]S[SUB0] - 3s [SUP1]P[SUB1] transition for neonlike argon at 46.9 nm with targets up to 0.45-cm long. Preliminary result on the nickellike xenon x-ray laser is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]