Femtosecond-laser-driven X-ray source with 12 micron size and flux of 1,200 photons/mrad2/pulse

A research group at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (Kizugawa, Japan) has recently developed a novel table-top pulsed X-ray source. The source employs a Ti:sapphire laser, emitting 70 fs duration 2 TW pulses of 800 nm wavelength at 10 Hz. The laser beam is focused to the flow of high-density Ar gas. The source was applied to perform phase contrast imaging. For more information, see the paper, "Phase-contrast x-ray imaging with intense Ar Ka radiation from femtosecond-laser-driven gas target", L. M. Chen et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 211501 (2007).