Some like it hot: Table-top soft-x-ray lasers pumped by high power pulsed discharges

#Soft #X-Rays

Some 25 years ago, the first table-top, soft-x-ray laser powered by a high-power electrical discharge was demonstrated at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. To make this laser work, argon gas was heated to the equivalent of roughly one million degrees Celsius using a 40-kA current pulse that lasted a few tens of nanoseconds.

Before that demonstration, the only lasers operating at very short wavelengths were extremely large, complex and expensive.  For many years, these factors had hampered the development of practical applications.  The demonstration of lasing using a relatively smaller and simpler setup accelerated the development of a number of applications and opened the door to the development of other table-top short-wavelength lasers, fueling the initial growth of CSU’s high-power, short wavelength laser program.

In this talk I don’t intend to go deep into the physics of this type of laser. Rather, I plan to go over its basic working principles and experimental setup while pointing out connections to more “traditional” electrical engineering.  I will also review the issues that make this laser system challenging and interesting from an engineering point of view, including making these lasers accessible and user-friendly.  No previous knowledge of lasers, plasmas, or high-power electrical discharges is required.

Brief Section Update

Presentation