X-Ray Lasers 2010

This book provides a comprehensive review of the present status of achievements in the area of soft X-ray laser sources, supplemented by information about sources based on relativistic laser?matter interaction and their future, and incoherent sources within a very broad spectral range. The diversity of demonstrated or planned applications presented in the book supports the thesis that such sources have now reached a mature stage of development.There is a significant effort worldwide to develop very bright, ultra-short duration, radiation sources in the extreme ultraviolet and X-ray spectral regions, driven by a diversity of potential applications in nearly all branches of science. This book updates the status in this field and focuses on developments in laser plasma-based methods. The scheme of transient inversion proves its robustness by being dominant in the area of repetitive X-ray lasers pumped at grazing-incidence-geometry by optical lasers of moderate energy at increasing repetition rates - these characteristics enable them to be used in university-class laboratories.Experimental and theoretical progress associated with the seeding technique by high harmonics is well covered. This technique is important as it is also considered from the perspective of seeding X-ray free electron lasers. Dramatic progress in laser development and extending the available power range to the petawatt level is stimulating a new generation of methods of ultra-bright and ultra-short pulses of energetic X-rays. These methods, as well as some elements of attoscience based on high harmonics generation, are well represented. Finally, a comprehensive survey of possible applications of the described sources in different areas of science constitutes, by defining the parameter set of interest, a framework for considering the direction further developments will take.