Interaction of intense, femtosecond laser pulse with small-sized Ne clusters

Abstract
We report the first observation of X-ray emission (4 - 18 nm) from small-sized Ne clusters heated by high-intensity, 25-100 fs laser pulses. The Ne spectrum started to drastically change in emitting ions from Ne⁵⁺ to Ne⁷⁺ below the pre-expansion temperature of -120 °C. The significant change in the spectrum is attributed to the collisional heating of small-sized Ne clusters formed in the cryogenically cooled gas jet. Though the size of Ne clusters in our experiment is estimated to be quite small, i.e. a few tens of atoms per cluster, and thus they were undetectable by the standard Rayleigh scattering technique, the appearance of spectral lines of Ne⁷⁺ ions presented clear evidence of collisional heating that occurred in near-solid-density cluster. By extending the laser pulse length from 25 fs to 100 fs, considerably higher X-ray yield from the highest charge state Ne⁷⁺ was observed in the covered spectral region, showing more efficient absorption of 100 fs laser pulse.