Soft-x-ray lasing and saturation in nickellike silver at pump energies below 30 J

We demonstrate that careful optimization of main-pulse–prepulse time delay and target curvature permits lasing and saturation to be achieved in Ni-like collisionally excited ions at pump energies that are achievable with tabletop systems. Saturation of the 13.9-nm, J=0–1 line of Ag, which has a gain–length product of 15.3, was obtained by use of a single prepulse pumping scheme and a pump energy of less than 30 J in 100 ps.