Double-pulse single-beam grazing-incidence pumping

The paper reports on the optimization of a table-top nickel-like molybdenum transient collisionally excited soft x-ray laser (SXRL) at 18.9 nm, performed by double-pulse single beam grazing incidence pumping (DGRIP) [1]. This scheme allows for the first time the full control of the pump laser parameters including the pre-pulse duration, optimally generating the SXRL amplifier under grazing incidence. The single beam geometry of collinear double-pulse propagation guarantees the ideal overlap of the pre- and main pulse from shot to shot, resulting in a more efficient, highly stable SXRL output. SXRL energies up to 2.2 µJ are obtained with a total pump energy less than 1 J for several hours at…