X-ray emission characteristics of foam target plasmas

Complete text of publication follows. Experimental results of laser radiation interaction with a foam targets are presented. The spatial, temporal and energy characteristics of x-ray plasma radiation have been investigated. The pinhole-camera and Schwarzschild objective have been used for the plasma image formation in different spectral ranges. The plasma image is registered by the Schwarzschild objective in a narrow spectral range 180 - 200 A. Spectral characteristics of x-ray radiation registered by pinhole-camera have been defined by means outer filters. The use of the filters with different transmission curves allowed one the determine the localization of x-ray radiation with fixed wavelength. Spatial resolution accounts 16 μm in the pinhole-camera diagnostic channel and 2.5 μm in the Schwarzschild objective diagnostic channel. The plasma images in the intrinsic x-ray radiation show that the emission area in the transverse direction with respect to the direction of the propagating heating radiation exceeds the focal spot size. This fact indicates that the target heating in the transverse direction is due to internal energy of the created plasma. The average value of plasma electron temperature is ∼ 0.4 - 1.4 keV. Acknowledgements. The work is partly supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Researches, grant no. 10-02-00113 and by Federal Target Program 'Research and scientific-pedagogical cadres of Innovative Russia' (grant 2009-1.1-122-052-025).