Abstract

In recent years, a cylindric lens (or a cylindric-aspheric lens combination) was used to focus the high power laser onto targets and form line-shaped plasmas such as gain media of soft x-ray lasers. Studies^1–3 show that the uniformity of the line shaped plasma is an important condition for obtaining sufficient amplification of x-ray radiation along the line. The nonuniformities in the line-shaped plasma could eventually lead to gain spoiling and might become obstacles in achieving optimum x- ray lasing.

© 1990 Optical Society of America