2018/01/08 by Lyu, Chunhai, Cavaletto, Stefano M., Keitel, Christoph H. +1
#Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Optics (physics.optics)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1801.02503
Since the advent of x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs), considerable efforts have been devoted to achieve x-ray pulses with better temporal coherence. Here, we put forward a scheme to generate fully coherent x-ray lasers (XRLs) based on population inversion in highly charged ions (HCIs), created by fast inner-shell photoionization using XFEL pulses in a laser-produced plasma. Numerical simulations show that one can obtain high-intensity, femtosecond x-ray pulses of relative bandwidths Δω/ω=10-5 - 10-7 by orders of magnitude narrower than in XFEL pulses for wavelengths down to the sub-ångström regime. Such XRLs may be applicable in the study of x-ray quantum optics and metrology, investigating nonlinear interactions between x-rays and matter, or in high-precision spectroscopy studies in laboratory astrophysics.