Demonstration of a hybridly pumped table-top soft X-ray laser

Summary form only given. Two X-ray laser (XRL) pumping schemes have recently shown significant progress in increasing the gain available and reducing the pump energy required. Both proved to be robust and reliable pumping methods for obtaining lasing in the XUV region of the spectrum. The first one is the transient inversion scheme that includes in its standard version a combination of two laser pulses (long/short) to create and subsequently heat the plasma. The second pumping method uses a fast capillary discharge to create and pump an abundance of Ne-like ions. However, the latter works in the quasisteady-state (QSS) regime giving relatively long output pulses of /spl sime/0.5-1 ns and the former is plagued by refraction. We report on the first, to our knowledge, successful experiment on combining advantages of both systems in one, hybridly pumped Ne-like S/sup +/ x-ray laser. Laser pulse guiding through a capillary discharge plasma and evidence of strong enhancement of the laser line following excitation by the laser pulse are presented.