Experimental and numerical study of ultra-short laser-produced collimated Cu Kα X-ray source

Kα X-ray sources generated from the interaction of ultra-short laser pulses with solids are compact and low-cost source of ultra-short quasi-monochromatic X-rays compared with synchrotron radiation source. Development of collimated ultra-short Kα X-ray source by the interaction of 45 fs Ti:sapphire laser pulse with Cu wire target is presented in this paper. A study of the Kα source with laser parameters such as energy and pulse duration was carried out. The observed Kα X-ray photon flux was ~2.7 × 108 photons/shot at the laser intensity of ~2.8 × 1017 W cm−2. A model was developed to analyze the observed results. The Kα radiation was coupled to a polycapillary collimator to generate a collimated low divergence (0.8 mrad) X-ray beam. Such sources are useful for time-resolved X-ray diffraction and imaging studies.