Rights statement: © 2007 American Physical Society
Final published version, 265 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Article number | 085001 |
---|---|
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 24/08/2007 |
<mark>Journal</mark> | Physical review letters |
Issue number | 8 |
Volume | 99 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Publication Status | Published |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
The first evidence of x-ray harmonic radiation extending to 3.3 A, 3.8 keV (order n > 3200) from petawatt class laser-solid interactions is presented, exhibiting relativistic limit efficiency scaling (eta similar to n(-2.5)-n(-3)) at multi-keV energies. This scaling holds up to a maximum order, n(RO)similar to 8(1/2)gamma(3), where gamma is the relativistic Lorentz factor, above which the first evidence of an intensity dependent efficiency rollover is observed. The coherent nature of the generated harmonics is demonstrated by the highly directional beamed emission, which for photon energy h nu > 1 keV is found to be into a cone angle similar to 4 degrees, significantly less than that of the incident laser cone (20 degrees).