K-shell X-ray spectroscopy of laser produced aluminum plasma

•Spectroscopic studies of laser produced aluminium plasma.•Our results are validated with the theoretical simulations.•It is helpful for the characterization of plasma parameters.

Optimization of a laser produced plasma (LPP) X-ray source has been performed by analyzing K-shell emission spectra of Al plasma at a laser intensity of 1013-1014 W/cm2. The effect of varying the laser intensity on the emissivity of the K-shell resonance lines is studied and found to follow a power law, Ix=(IL)α with α=2.2, 2.3, 2.4 for Heβ, Heγ, Heδ respectively. The emission of these resonance lines has been found to be heavily anisotropic. A Python language based code has been developed to generate an intensity profile of K-shell spectral lines from the raw data. In theoretical calculations, the temperature is estimated by taking the ratio of the Li-like satellite (1s22p-1s2p3p) and the Heβ (1s2-1s3p) resonance line and the ratio of the He-like satellite (1s2p-2p2) and the Lyα (1s-2p) resonance line. To determine the plasma density, stark broadening of the Lyβ spectral line is used. Simulation was carried out using the FLYCHK code to generate a synthetic emission spectrum. The results obtained by FLYCHK are Te=160 eV, Th=1 keV, f=0.008, ne=5×1020 cm-3 and the analytical model resulted Te=260-419 eV and ne=3x1020 cm-3.