Dynamics of the EUV radiation in a fast micro-capillary plasma discharge source

An ultra-fast micro-capillary plasma discharge is used to generate a hot plasma that acts as a source of high brightness EUV radiation. The discharge proceeds by a dielectric surface self-breakdown in vacuum through a preformed sub-millimetre hole in the dielectric sheet separating two circular parallel electrodes. This geometrical constriction increases the reproducibility and pins the plasma during its early development. Time resolved spectroscopic measurements were used to characterise the radiation in the 10 - 30 nm region.