A K-alpha x-ray source using high energy and high repetition rate laser system for phase contrast imaging.

K-alpha x-ray sources from laser produced plasmas provide completely new possibilities for x-ray phase-contrast imaging applications. By tightly focusing intense femtosecond laser pulses onto a solid target K-alpha x-ray pulses are generated through the interaction of energetic electrons created in the plasma with the bulk target. In this paper, we present a continuous and efficient Mo K-alpha x-ray source produced by a femtosecond laser system operating at 100 Hz repetition rate with maximum pulse energy of 110 mJ before compression. The source has an x-ray conversion efficiency of greater than 10(-5) into K-alpha line emission. In preparation for phase contrast imaging applications, the size of the resultant K-alpha x-ray emission spot has been also characterized. The source exhibits sufficient spatial coherence to observe phase contrast. We observe a relatively small broadening of the K-alpha source size compared to the size of the laser beam itself. Detailed characterization of the source including the x-ray spectrum and the x-ray average yield along with phase contrast images of test objects will be presented.