Development and applications of short pulse soft X-ray lasers

Summary form only given. X-ray lasers with pulse duration shorter than 20 ps allow the possibility of imaging laser-produced plasmas with /spl mu/m resolution. The high peak brightness of these sources will make it possible to study nonlinear optics in the XUV extreme ultraviolet region. Efforts have been made to produce collisionally pumped short-pulse X-ray lasers. 45-ps (FWHM) X-ray lasers have been produced using a double pulse irradiation technique. The application of these lasers probing high-density plasmas has been considered.