High-flux table-top soft x-ray source driven by sub-2-cycle, CEP stable, 1.85-μm 1-kHz pulses for carbon K-edge spectroscopy

We report on the first table-top high-flux source of coherent soft x-ray radiation up to 400 eV, operating at 1 kHz. This source covers the carbon K-edge with a beam brilliance of (4.3 +/- 1.2) x 10(15) photons/s/mm(2)/strad/10% bandwidth and a photon flux of (1.85 +/- 0.12) x 10(7) photons/s/1% bandwidth. We use this source to demonstrate table-top x-ray near-edge fine-structure spectroscopy at the carbon K-edge of a polyimide foil and retrieve the specific absorption features corresponding to the binding orbitals of the carbon atoms in the foil. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America