Aluminum K-alpha emission from an intense uhf laser-generated plasma

X-rays emitted from high-density plasmas created by femtosecond laser pulses in the sub-keV to MeV energy regions are of great interest as diagnostics particularly for ICF plasmas. The incoherent X-rays radiated have a high-brightness due to the small size and short lifetime of the high energy density plasma. These radiation sources with short pulse durations are expected to provide high temporal resolution for x-ray absorption and other applications such as x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy used to measure dynamic processes in laser excited materials. We describe our theoretical model which couples time-dependent hot electron production with a non-equilibrium aluminum collisional-radiative model. The numerical simulations provide the optimum parameters (laser intensity and target thickness) for maximizing the efficiency of converting 40-fs of incident energy from HERCULES laser into K α and K-shell-line aluminum emission. Predictions as a diagnostic tool relevant to future experiments will be presented.