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Journal Articles Nature Physics Year : 2010

Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source

S. Kneip
  • Function : Author
C. Bellei
  • Function : Author
S. R. Nagel
  • Function : Author
J. Schreiber
  • Function : Author
Kim Ta Phuoc
Z. Najmudin
  • Function : Author

Abstract

Each successive generation of X-ray machines has opened up new frontiers in science, such as the first radiographs and the determination of the structure of DNA. State-of-the-art X-ray sources can now produce coherent high-brightness X-rays of greater than kiloelectronvolt energy and promise a new revolution in imaging complex systems on nanometre and femtosecond scales. Despite the demand, only a few dedicated synchrotron facilities exist worldwide, in part because of the size and cost of conventional (accelerator) technology. Here we demonstrate the use of a new generation of laser-driven plasma accelerators, which accelerate high-charge electron beams to high energy in short distances, to produce directional, spatially coherent, intrinsically ultrafast beams of hard X-rays. This reduces the size of the synchrotron source from the tens of metres to the centimetre scale, simultaneously accelerating and wiggling the electron beam. The resulting X-ray source is 1,000 times brighter than previously reported plasma wigglers and thus has the potential to facilitate a myriad of uses across the whole spectrum of light-source applications.

Dates and versions

hal-00572596 , version 1 (01-03-2011)

Identifiers

Cite

S. Kneip, C. Mcguffey, J. L. Martins, S. F. Martins, C. Bellei, et al.. Bright spatially coherent synchrotron X-rays from a table-top source. Nature Physics, 2010, 6, pp.980-983. ⟨10.1038/nphys1789⟩. ⟨hal-00572596⟩
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