Experimental study of x-ray emission in laser-cluster interaction

Rare gas cluster jets are an intermediate medium between solid and gas targets. Laser-cluster jets interaction may generate a great number of energetic particles such as X-rays, UV, high harmonics, ions, electrons and neutrons. To understand all the mechanisms involved in this interaction we need to make a complete study of individual cluster response to an ultra-short laser pulse. We studied the laser interaction with our Argon cluster gas jet, which is well characterized in cluster size and density, to enlarge the knowledge of this interaction. We measured absorption, heating and X-ray emission spectra versus laser parameters and clusters size (~15-30 nm). We show that there is a strong refraction effect on laser propagation due to the residual gas density. This effect was confirmed by laser propagation simulation with a cylindrical 2D particle code WAKE. The role played by refraction was to limit maximum laser intensity on the focal spot and to increase interaction volume. By this way, X-ray emission was observed with laser intensity not so far from the ionization threshold (few 10 14 W.cm -2 ). We also studied plasma expansion both at cluster scale and focal volume scale and deduced the deposited energy distribution as a function of time. Thanks to a simple hydrodynamic model, we used these results to study cluster expansion. X-ray emission is then simulated by TRANSPEC code in order to reproduce X-ray spectra and duration. Those results revealed an extremely brief X-ray emission consistent with a preliminary measure by streak camera (~ps).