Improved liquid jet laser-plasma source for X-ray microscopy

Abstract
We increase the x-ray flux from a liquid-jet laser-plasma x-ray source by optimizing the target geometry. A new nozzle fabrication method allows us to produce stable microscopic liquid jets with a wide range of diameters. The improved x-ray flux is demonstrated by optimizing the diameter of an ethanol liquid-jet for our 3 ns, nm Nd: YAG laser and measuring the flux at the nm C VI emission line. Preliminary data suggest that the x-ray flux can be increased by more than a factor of 4 compared to previous experiments. The goal is to significantly reduce the exposure time of our laser-plasma-based compact x-ray microscope by improving the source.