Submillimeter high brightness pulsed x-ray source

By inducing an electrical discharge in an annular gas plenum connected to a vacuum diode by a narrow annular slit, we demonstrate that microgram preionized plasma liners can be formed and imploded by a dc charged Blumlein pulser to efficiently convert electrical energy into soft x rays. The submillimeter x-ray source can in principle be scaled to the high repetition rate needed for x-ray lithography. In a proof of principle experiment, we have observed using krypton up to 0.5, 20, and 100 J of x-ray output above 1.5 keV, 500 eV, and 150 eV photon energies, respectively.