Experimental verification of femtosecond laser ablation schemes by time-resolved soft x-ray reflective imaging.

Pump and probe reflective imaging using a soft x-ray laser probe was applied to the observation of the early stage of femtosecond laser ablation process on platinum. In strongly excited area, drastic and fast reflectivity drop was observed. In moderately excited area, the decay of the reflectivity is slower than that in the strongly excited area, and the reflectivity reaches its minimum at t = 160 ps.

Demonstration of a highly coherent 13.9 nm x-ray laser from a silver tape target.

A highly coherent 13.9 nm x-ray laser (XRL) is generated under an oscillator-amplifier configuration using a new tape target system and a driver laser system with a 0.1 Hz repetition rate.