Characterization of laser-produced plasma x-ray sources for use in x-ray radiography

We report the absolute conversion efficiency ξx from the incident laser light energy to x-ray photons for laser-produced plasmas. Potential x-ray backlighting (radiography) line sources having photon energies from 1.4 to 8.6 keV are studied as a function of laser wavelength, pulsewidth, and intensity. The laser intensity and pulsewidth range from 1014 to 1016 W/cm2, 100 ps to 2 ns and include incident wavelengths of 1.06, 0.53, and 0.35 μm. We found that K-shell x-ray line emission ξx : (1) decreases with increasing x-ray energy, (2) decreases with increasing laser intensity, (3) decreases rapidly with pulselength, and (4) moderately increases with decreasing laser wavelength. On the contrary, for Au M band emission, at a fixed laser intensity and pulsewidth, ξx significantly increases (∼25×) upon decreasing the laser wavelength from 1.06 to 0.35 μm.