Conical crystal spectrograph for high brightness x-ray Kα spectroscopy in subpicosecond laser-solid interaction

A high brightness crystal spectrograph was designed and successfully used to study the x-ray Kalpha spectrum of aluminum as a diagnostic for target heating due to suprathermal electrons in subpicosecond laser-solid interaction experiments. Conical geometry was chosen in order to enhance spatial focusing, since an extremely low signal-to-noise ratio was expected for the photon flux, and to have a reasonable spectral range while occupying only a small solid angle within the target chamber. Very high image brightness is obtained through strong spatial focusing, as well as good spectral resolution. A simple analytical model and three-dimensional numerical simulation are presented to describe the crystal characteristics. The performance of the spectrograph was tested both on an optical bench and with a ray-tracing code. The experimental spectra allowed us to estimate the target temperature and characterize the fast electron transport. The spectrograph is considered to be particularly useful, in the configuration described here, for high power laser experiments where the solid angle accessible to the spectrograph is small and blast and debris damage from the laser produced plasma is significant. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.