Experimental observation of soft X-rays and suprathermal ions from rare-gas cryogenic solid targets

We investigated characteristics of the soft X-ray emission in the wavelength range of 6–16 nm using various rare-gas cryogenic solid targets irradiated with a nanosecond laser pulse. Suprathermal ions having a maximum velocity of the order of 10⁷ cm/s were detected for three rare-gas targets (Ar, Kr, and Xe). The spatial distributions of the soft X-rays and the suprathermal ions were measured for Xe cryogenic solid targets and found to vary as cos² and cos⁵, respectively, where is the angle to the target normal. By integrating the observed cos² spatial distribution, the conversion efficiency of the soft X-ray emission in the wavelength range from 6 to 16 nm was evaluated to be 0.2%/pulse. PACS 52.38.ph; 52.50.Jm