Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 175, 153-158 (2009)
DOI: 10.1140/epjst/e2009-01134-3

Grazing incidence pumping of an 18.9 nm Ni-like Mo X-ray laser

N. Booth¹, M.H. Edwards¹, Z. Zhai¹, G.J. Tallents¹, T. Dzelzainis², C.L.S. Lewis², A. Behjat³, Q. Dong⁴, S.J. Wang⁴, D. Neely⁵, P. Foster⁵ and M. Streeter<sup>5

1</sup>  Department of Physics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
²  School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK
³  Department of Physics, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran
⁴  Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China
⁵  Central Laser Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot OX11 0QX, UK

Abstract
Results of an experiment investigating the grazing-incidence pumping of a Ni-like Mo X-ray laser are presented. The X-ray laser was produced with a 600 mJ, 500 ps background pulse and a 250 mJ, 240 fs main pulse. X-ray laser output was measured using a flat-field spectrometer modified to record both the first- and second-order output of the molybdenum lasing emission. Time-resolved data was obtained using an Axis-Photonique PX1 X-ray streak camera coupled to the first order output of the flat-field spectrometer. It is shown that saturated X-ray laser output is produced with energy up to 150 nJ, and pulse duration of typically 1.7 ps for a range of grazing angles and delays between the background and main pulse. The experimental data is interpreted in terms of a model taking account of the expected ASE variation of X-ray laser output.

© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag 2009