A 10 Hz, 3 microjoule transient soft X-ray laser pumped in grazing incidence

We present recent results on the extensive investigation of a Ni-like Mo X-ray laser pumped in the transient regime and GRIP (grazing incidence pumping) configuration. The pump laser was the 10 Hz, multi-terawatt, Ti:Sa laser system at Lund Laser Centre, Sweden. The main diagnostic was a monochromatic near-field imaging system with a 1.7 micron spatial resolution. Intense lasing was observed routinely at 18.9 nm with up to 3 microJoule output energy and stable operation at 10 Hz was demonstrated in 100-shot sequences. We have investigated the role of several pumping parameters, in particular the relative energy and delay between the long and short pulse. A preliminary investigation was done on the effect of a low energy prepulse. Finally, the grazing angle of the pumping pulse was systematically varied between 13° and 21°, while keeping all parameters constant. We show that this multi-parameter scan leads to a welldefined optimal zone of operation and better understanding of the GRIP configuration.