Davídková, M., Juha, L., Bittner, M., Koptyaev, S., Krása, J., Pfeifer, M., Štísová, V., Bartnik, A., Fiedorowicz, H., Mikolajczyk, J., Ryc, L., Pína, L., Horváth, M., Babánková, D., Cihelka, J. and Civiš, S. A High-Power Laser-Driven Source of Sub-nanosecond Soft X-Ray Pulses for Single-Shot Radiobiology Experiments. Radiat. Res. 168, 382–387 (2007).
A large-scale, double-stream gas puff target has been illuminated by sub-kJ, near-infrared (NIR) focused laser pulses at the PALS facility (Prague Asterix Laser System) to produce high-energy pulses of soft X rays from hot, dense plasma. The double-puff arrangement ensures high gas density and conversion efficiency from NIR to X rays approaching that typical for solid targets. In addition, its major advantage over solid targets is that it is free of debris and has substantially suppressed charged-particle emission. The X-ray emission characteristics of the source were determined for a range of gases that included krypton, xenon, N2, CO and N2-CO. A demonstrated application of the xenon-based source is a single-shot damage induction to plasmid DNA. The yields of single-strand breaks (SSBs) and double-strand breaks (DSBs) were determined as a function of energy fluence adjusted by varying distance of sample from the source and thickness of aluminum filters.
