PLEIADES: high peak brightness, subpicosecond Thomson hard x-ray source

The Picosecond Laser-Electron Inter-Action for the Dynamic Evaluation of Structures (PLEIADES) facility, is a unique, novel, tunable (10-200 keV), ultrafast (ps-fs), hard x-ray source that greatly extends the parameter range reached by existing 3(rd) generation sources, both in terms of x-ray energy range, pulse duration, and peak brightness at high energies. First light was observed at 70 keV early in 2003, and the experimental data agrees with 3D codes developed at LLNL. The x-rays are generated by the interaction of a 50 fs Fourier-transform-limited laser pulse produced by the TW-class FALCON CPA laser and a highly focused, relativistic (20-100 MeV), high brightness (I nC, 0.3-5 ps, 5 mm.mrad, 0.2% energy spread) photo-electron bunch. The resulting x-ray brightness is expected to exceed 10(20) ph/mm(2)/s/mrad(2)/0.1% BW. The beam is well-collimated (10 mrad divergence over the full spectrum, I mrad for a single color), and the source is a unique tool for time-resolved dynamic measurements in matter, including high-Z materials.