Enhanced X-ray emission from laser-produced gold plasma by double pulses irradiation of nano-porous targets

Enhancement of the soft X-ray emission including free-free, free-bound and bound-bound emissions from Au nano-porous targets irradiated by single and double laser pulses is studied through numerical simulations. Laser pulses of duration 2 ns are used in calculations considering different prepulse intensities and a fixed intensity of 1013Wcm−2 for the main pulse. The effects of prepulse intensity and time separation between laser pulses are studied for targets of different porosities. Results show that the X-ray yield can be enhanced significantly by a nano-porous target having optimum initial density. Such enhancement can be more improved when double laser pulses with appropriate delay time and intensities irradiate nano-porous targets. It is shown that the enhancement will be reduced when the prepulse intensity is greater than a specific value.