High Brightness Optical-Field-Ionization X-Ray Lasers Driven in Plasma Waveguides

We experimentally demonstrate that the plasma waveguide can be efficiently produced in a pure Xe, Kr, and Ar cluster jet operated at a high backing pressure with axicon ignitor-heater scheme. The lasing photon number of Ni-like Kr laser at 32.8 nm generated in waveguide is dramatically enhanced by about three orders of magnitude in comparison to that without plasma waveguide, resulting in a photon number of 8 x 10(10) and an energy conversion efficiency of 2 x 10(-6) with a pump pulse of just 235 mJ. Due to the high atom density and long gain length provided by the plasma waveguide, Ne-like Ar laser at 46.9 nm is achieved in OR plasma channel at the first time and simultaneous lasing in two ion species is also generated in a 10 min gas jet with Kr and Ar mixtures. With sufficient x-ray photons, we show that x-ray digital holographic microscopy can be achieved in single-shot measurement providing a spatial resolution of < 500 nm and a temporal resolution of < 10 ps.