Soft X-ray laser of second generation

This paper explores the second generation soft X-ray laser both numerically and experimentally. Numerical studies have been achieved by successively using two numerical codes. The first code (hydrodynamic code) describes the spatio-temporal evolution of the plasma while the second code (ray-trace) models the amplification and propagation of the seed along the plasma amplifier. Preliminary numerical study tends to show that mJ level, fully coherent, soft X-ray laser with 100 fs in duration is achievable for wavelengths ranging from 30 to 4 nm, and with a pump laser of several tens of joules as the driver. Moreover, experimental studies have been performed using a 2 J, 20 fs Ti:sapphire laser operating at 10 Hz. About 100 mJ has been used to generate the seed i.e. high harmonics of the fundamental laser. Amplification as high as 1000 have been observed leading to 3 /spl mu/J, 500 fs, highly coherent, polarised soft X-ray laser.