HOMOGENEOUS CYLINDRICAL PLASMA SOURCE FOR SHORT-WAVELENGTH LASER EXPERIMENTS

A plasma source suitable for repetitive operation, going beyond single shot experiments for research into soft x-ray lasers, is reported. Successful operation of an ultrafast, small-diameter, highly uniform z pinch has been achieved at currents of 35-50 kA, for a variety of gases and a large range of mass densities. Due to an efficient preionization of the working gas, a high-temperature and a high cooling rate of the plasma column are obtained. The plasma is less than 1 mm in radius, over 30 mm long, and over 10(18) cm-3 ion density. A soft x-ray recombination laser experiment for the lambda-almost-equal-to 182 angstrom Balmer-alpha-like transition in C VI is proposed.