Effective generation of characteristic K-rays from large laser-excited SF6 clusters in the presence of an Ar carrier gas

The parameters of characteristic sulfur K α-rays generated from SF6 clusters that are surrounded by argon atoms and are irradiated by intense laser radiation have been analyzed. It has been found that the formation of large SF6 clusters under the optimum experimental parameters is accompanied by the high-efficiency generation of the characteristic X rays, and the flux density of the characteristic X-ray photons is 100 photons/(mrad2 pulse) at a laser-pulse energy of 5 mJ. It has been shown that the third-harmonic generation process can be used to characterize the spatial sizes of the gas-cluster jet and the region of the cluster plasma.