1. Department of Physics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK;2. Department of X-ray Lasers, PALS Research Centre, Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic
Abstract:
The transmission of plasma-based soft X-ray lasers through thin targets can be used to measure the target opacity. Measurements of warm dense matter transmission obtained using a focused 59 eV photon energy laser irradiation on thin targets of polyimide (C22H10N2O5) and aluminum are shown to produce simultaneous heating and probing enabling opacity and temperature measurements of warm dense matter. It is shown that the opacity of the warm dense matter considered in the experiments follows closely tabulated cold ‘room temperature’ opacities at temperatures below ~10 eV. Transmission measurements of thin iron targets which are highly opaque to the X-ray laser radiation are also presented.