K-shell spectra from hot dense aluminum layers buried in carbon and heated by ultrashort laser pulses

Ultrashort laser pulses allow for the generation of hot plasmas near solid state densities. For this purpose a Ti:Sapphire laser was used, which delivers after frequency doubling, pulses of high contrast with an energy of about 60 mJ and a duration of 150 fs at 395 run. The typical intensity on the target was a few 10(17) W/cm(2). To achieve a high degree of uniformity we used targets consisting of a 25 run thin Al tracer layer buried at different depths up to 400 nm in solid carbon. Time-integrated Al K-shell spectra are presented. Characteristic features of the spectra are significant high-order satellite line emission, strong line broadening and a center-of-mass line shift to the red, which was observed in transitions from principal quantum number n = 2 or 3 to 1. Accurate measurement of the shift was made possible by using the cold Si K-alpha line as an absolute wavelength calibration. In addition to time-integrated measurements, we used an ultrafast X-ray streak camera to obtain time and spectrally resolved spectra. Typical durations of the Ly(alpha) and He-alpha lines are in the range 2-4 ps. The experimental results are compared with a time-dependent model, which combines hydrodynamic simulations, time-dependent atomic kinetics, detailed spectral line shapes including line shifts, and radiation transport. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.