Soft X-ray enhancement from porous target irradiated by high power sub-nanosecond laser beam and the effect of plasma opacity

In this paper, we investigate numerically the enhancement of the soft continuum X-ray yield emitted from porous aluminum targets irradiated by sub-nanosecond high power pulsed laser beam. The calculations were conducted for two different conditions: (i) ignoring plasma opacity, and (ii) including it in the calculations; and finally the results were compared. In the calculations, the main emission mechanisms were assumed to be the free-bound and free-free (bremsstrahlung) transitions at water windows wavelengths ranges 2.3-4.4 nm and also 12.6-14.6 nm, which is useful for lithography applications. The free-free and bound-free transitions were also considered for calculating the opacity. The results show that for both conditions, the X-ray yield rises with increasing the porosity and the increase rate is almost equal in both cases; however, the calculations are not appropriate for estimating the absolute values of the X-ray yield when the plasma opacity is ignored.