kHz femtosecond laser plasma x-ray and ion source

Summary form only given. Femtosecond laser plasmas have attracted much interest in recent years as intense short pulses x-ray sources in the keV range for a variety of applications, such as lattice dynamics of semiconductor materials. There would be many advantages to having high repetition rate (kHz) versions of this source, but for this the laser must be able to provide sufficient intensity, and it must be integrated with a debris-free, continuous target. We describe the first demonstration of a kHz femtosecond laser plasma source produced from a liquid metal jet target. With a 30 /spl mu/m diameter liquid Ga jet, this source produces photon numbers of up to 5 /spl times/ 10/sup 8/ photons/sec in 4/spl pi/ sterad using a kHz Ti:sapphire laser producing 50 fs-pulses with an energy of 1.8 mJ at a repetition rate of 1 kHz.