Abstract
We report the first experimental demonstration of a laser-driven circularly polarized soft-x-ray laser chain. It has been achieved by seeding a 32.8 nm Kr ix plasma amplifier with a high-order harmonic beam, which has been circularly polarized using a four-reflector polarizer. Our measurements testify that the amplified radiation maintains the initial polarization of the seed pulse in good agreement with our Maxwell-Bloch modeling. The resulting fully circular soft-x-ray laser beam exhibits a Gaussian profile and yields about photons per shot, fulfilling the requirements for laboratory-scale photon-demanding application experiments.
- Received 27 May 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.083901
© 2015 American Physical Society
Synopsis
A Circularly Polarized Laser for All Labs
Published 19 August 2015
Researchers have developed a compact, circularly polarized x-ray source for studying biological materials.
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