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We present an indirect method of estimating the strength of a shock wave, allowing on line monitoring of its reproducibility in each laser shot. This method is based on a shot-to-shot measurement of the X-ray emission from the ablated plasma by a high resolution, spatially resolved focusing spectrometer. An optical pump laser with energy of 1.0 J and pulse duration of ∼660 ps was used to irradiate solid targets or foils with various thicknesses containing Oxygen, Aluminum, Iron, and Tantalum. The high sensitivity and resolving power of the X-ray spectrometer allowed spectra to be obtained on each laser shot and to control fluctuations of the spectral intensity emitted by different plasmas with an accuracy of ∼2%, implying an accuracy in the derived electron plasma temperature of 5%-10% in pump-probe high energy density science experiments. At nano- and sub-nanosecond duration of laser pulse with relatively low laser intensities and ratio Z/A∼0.5, the electron temperature follows Te∼Ilas2/3. Thus, measurements of the electron plasma temperature allow indirect estimation of the laser flux on the target and control its shot-to-shot fluctuation. Knowing the laser flux intensity and its fluctuation gives us the possibility of monitoring shot-to-shot reproducibility of shock wave strength generation with high accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the induced plasma heating in three different kinds of targets: mass limited, foam targets, and large mass targets. The experiment was performed at Alisé Laser Facility of CEA/CESTA. The laser system emitted a ∼1 ps pulse with ∼10 J energy at a wavelength of ∼1 μm. Mass limited targets had three layers with thicknesses of 10 μm C8H8, 1 μm C8H7Cl, and 10 μm C8H8 with size of 100×100 μm2. Detailed spectroscopic analysis of x rays emitted from the Cl tracer showed that it was possible to heat up the plasma from mass limited targets to a temperature of ∼250 eV with density of ∼1021 cm-3. The plasma heating is only produced by fast electron transport in the target, being the 10 μm C8H8 overcoating thick enough to prevent any possible direct irradiation of the tracer layer even taking into account mass-ablation due to the prepulse. These results demonstrate that with mass limited targets, it is possible to generate a plasma heated up to several hundreds eV. It is also very important for research concerning high energy density phenomena and for fast ignition (in particular for the study of fast electrons transport and induced heating). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction is presented to the article, "Fluence thresholds for grazing incidence hard x-ray mirrors" which was published in a 2019 issue of the periodical.

Advances in free electron lasers (FELs) which generate high energy photons are expected to open novel nonlinear optics in the x-ray and vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) regions. In this paper, we report a new method for performing VUV-FEL focusing experiments. A VUV-FEL was focused with Kirkpatrick-Baez optics on a multilayer target, which contains fused silica as a fluorescent material. By measuring the fluorescence, a 5.6×4.9 μm2 focal spot was observed in situ. Fluorescence was used to measure the saturable absorption of VUV pulses in the tin layer. The transmission increases nonlinearly higher with increasing laser intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method of spatially resolved single-shot absorption spectroscopy for an x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) pulse has been developed by using a dispersive spectrometer and an elliptical mirror to enhance the spatial resolution. As a demonstration, we performed x-ray absorption near-edge structure measurement of Cu with a pump-probe scheme combining an XFEL pulse and a high-power femtosecond laser pulse. In the experiment, changes of an absorption spectrum in a plasma generated with a laser shot were successfully observed. The method will be a powerful tool for experiments requiring a spatial resolution and/or a single-shot measurement, such as high energy density science using a high-power laser pulse.

In this study, the systematic errors of an X-ray single-grating interferometer based on the Talbot effect were investigated in detail. Non-negligible systematic errors induced by an X-ray camera were identified and a method to eliminate the systematic error was proposed. Systematic-error-free measurements of the wavefront error produced by multilayer focusing mirrors with large numerical apertures were demonstrated at the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser. Consequently, wavefront aberration obtained with two different cameras was found to be consistent with an accuracy better than λ/12.

We have developed a method of fabricating speckle-free channel-cut crystal optics with plasma chemical vaporization machining, an etching method using atmospheric-pressure plasma, for coherent X-ray applications. We investigated the etching characteristics to silicon crystals and achieved a small surface roughness of less than 1 nm rms at a removal depth of >10 μm, which satisfies the requirements for eliminating subsurface damage while suppressing diffuse scattering from rough surfaces. We applied this method for fabricating channel-cut Si(220) crystals for a hard X-ray split-and-delay optical system and confirmed that the crystals provided speckle-free reflection profiles under coherent X-ray illumination.

We evaluated the damage threshold of coating materials such as Mo, Ru, Rh, W, and Pt on Si substrates, and that of uncoated Si substrate, for mirror optics of X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs). Focused 1 μm (full width at half maximum) XFEL pulses with the energies of 5.5 and 10 keV, generated by the SPring-8 angstrom compact free electron laser (SACLA), were irradiated under the grazing incidence condition. The damage thresholds were evaluated by in situ measurements of X-ray reflectivity degradation during irradiation by multiple pulses. The measured damage fluences below the critical angles were sufficiently high compared with the unfocused SACLA beam fluence. Rh coating was adopted for two mirror systems of SACLA. One system was a beamline transport mirror system that was partially coated with Rh for optional utilization of a pink beam in the photon energy range of more than 20 keV. The other was an improved version of the 1 μm focusing mirror system, and no damage was observed after one year of operation.

This paper presents development of an X-ray pixel detector with a multi-port charge-coupled device (MPCCD) for X-ray Free-Electron laser experiments. The fabrication process of the CCD was selected based on the X-ray radiation hardness against the estimated annual dose of 1.6 × 10(14) photon/mm(2). The sensor device was optimized by maximizing the full well capacity as high as 5 Me- within 50 μm square pixels while keeping the single photon detection capability for X-ray photons higher than 6 keV and a readout speed of 60 frames/s. The system development also included a detector system for the MPCCD sensor. This paper summarizes the performance, calibration methods, and operation status.

We have developed an experimental apparatus named KOTOBUKI-1 for use in coherent X-ray diffraction imaging experiments of frozen-hydrated non-crystalline particles at cryogenic temperature. For cryogenic specimen stage with small positional fluctuation for a long exposure time of more than several minutes, we here use a cryogenic pot cooled by the evaporation cooling effect for liquid nitrogen. In addition, a loading device is developed to bring specimens stored in liquid nitrogen to the specimen stage in vacuum. The apparatus allows diffraction data collection for frozen-hydrated specimens at 66 K with a positional fluctuation of less than 0.4 μm and provides an experimental environment to easily exchange specimens from liquid nitrogen storage to the specimen stage. The apparatus was developed and utilized in diffraction data collection of non-crystalline particles with dimensions of μm from material and biological sciences, such as metal colloid particles and chloroplast, at BL29XU of SPring-8. Recently, it has been applied for single-shot diffraction data collection of non-crystalline particles with dimensions of sub-μm using X-ray free electron laser at BL3 of SACLA.

We have developed a single-shot intensity-measurement system using a silicon positive-intrinsic-negative (PIN) photodiode for x-ray pulses from an x-ray free electron laser. A wide dynamic range (10(3)-10(11) photons/pulse) and long distance signal transmission (>100 m) were required for this measurement system. For this purpose, we developed charge-sensitive and shaping amplifiers, which can process charge pulses with a wide dynamic range and variable durations (ns-μs) and charge levels (pC-μC). Output signals from the amplifiers were transmitted to a data acquisition system through a long cable in the form of a differential signal. The x-ray pulse intensities were calculated from the peak values of the signals by a waveform fitting procedure. This system can measure 10(3)-10(9) photons/pulse of ~10 keV x-rays by direct irradiation of a silicon PIN photodiode, and from 10(7)-10(11) photons/pulse by detecting the x-rays scattered by a diamond film using the silicon PIN photodiode. This system gives a relative accuracy of ~10(-3) with a proper gain setting of the amplifiers for each measurement. Using this system, we succeeded in detecting weak light at the developmental phase of the light source, as well as intense light during lasing of the x-ray free electron laser., (© 2012 American Institute of Physics)

Ultrafast, two-dimensional x-ray imaging is an important diagnostics for the inertial fusion energy research, especially in investigating implosion dynamics at the final stage of the fuel compression. Although x-ray radiography was applied to observing the implosion dynamics, intense x-rays emitted from the high temperature and dense fuel core itself are often superimposed on the radiograph. This problem can be solved by coupling the x-ray radiography with monochromatic x-ray imaging technique. In the experiment, 2.8 or 5.2 keV backlight x-rays emitted from laser-irradiated polyvinyl chloride or vanadium foils were selectively imaged by spherically bent quartz crystals with discriminating the out-of-band emission from the fuel core. This x-ray radiography system achieved 24 μm and 100 ps of spatial and temporal resolutions, respectively.