X-ray yields from Xe clusters heated by short pulse high intensity lasers

We have examined the absolute yield of keV x-rays emitted from gaseous plasmas created by the intense irradiation of large Xe clusters. We find that >10 μJ of x rays with photon energies above 1 keV are produced from clustering Xe gas targets when heated by 250 mJ, 2 ps laser pulses at an intensity of ∼1017 W/cm2. The yields show strong laser intensity dependence and variation with Xe cluster size.