Generation of ultrashort Kα radiation from quasipoint interaction area of femtosecond pulses with thin foils -: art. no. 244107

We demonstrate a concept for short x-ray generation at 1 kHz repetition rate from a thin-foil target in a very compact configuration, which allows one, essentially, to decrease the distance between x-ray source and investigated object. The scaling for the hard x-ray yield and the hot electron temperature with the pulse intensity are determined and best described by a power law. The useful photon fluxes of 3.4x10(9) and 3.3x10(9) phot/(s srad) are generated for the Ni- and Cu K-alpha lines, respectively. The size of the x-ray source was detected to be 10 mu m. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.