With the advent of ultrashort (subpicosecond) high-power lasers it is now possible to create intense bursts of X-rays with subpicosecond durations. An analysis of the temporal response of diffraction of such X-rays by crystals in both the dynamical and kinematic regime is presented. It is also shown that under certain conditions the temporal resolution can be determined by the response of the crystal.

When generating population density inversion and X-ray gain in the ions of a recombining plasma produced by short laser pulses it is essential to consider the energy level occupation as explicitly time-dependent. In the framework of a four-level model with time-dependent pumping terms, the inversion condition for the Balmer-α transition in H-like ions is derived in closed form, dependent, apart from specified initial conditions, on the atomic number Z, with the free-electron density Ne, the electron temperature Te, the Lyman-α escape probability E21, and the time t. In particular, at a short time after the initial time chosen near the time of the onset of recombination the Balmer-α inversion requires that Ne must be larger than some critical value depending on Te and Z.

For several years the laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technique has been applied successfully to the problem of detecting small traces of pollutants in gases. The possible application of this method for the individuation of mercury in air is discussed. The laboratory prototype of the detection system is described in detail, and the sensitivity of the system for the diagnostics of small traces of mercury is determined. The reduced dimensions of the experimental apparatus and its relatively low cost make the LIBS method competitive with other laser-based methods for in situ analysis.

The colliding shock lens is described briefly. Possible applications, industrial drilling and cutting, laser Q-switching and spatial filtering, ultrahigh-power applications, and “all gas lasers” are proposed. The time evolution, scaleability, and repetition rate operation are investigated.

Two novel high-dispersion, high-resolution spectroscopic methods are described. The properties of the vertical dispersion variants of the double-crystal spectrometer and the Johann spectrometer with a cylindrically bent crystal are discussed and compared with those of standard spectroscopic schemes. Preliminary experimental data demonstrate the good luminosity and extreme spectral and 1-D spatial resolution of these methods, which should prove useful in high-precision X-ray spectroscopic measurements of laser-produced plasmas.

Automated three-channel polari-interferometer measurements of electron density distributions and magnetic fields in a laser plasma are presented. Each of the polari-interferometer channels, interferometric, Faraday, and “tenebral” (shadow), has been equipped with a CCD camera with the matrix (512 × 512). With special software for each of the channels, not only the distribution of the electron density on the basis of interferograms is obtained, but also the distributions of magnetic fields in plasma using the information from the Faraday and shadow images. The results of testing investigations obtained in the plasma experiment are the main part of this work.

The first 14-MeV neutron images of imploded microballoons have been obtained on the Phébus laser facility at CEL-V. The sizes of the source have been measured, in direct-drive experiments, by means of a coded-aperture imaging system. The principle is to use a thick aperture with a diameter larger than that of the source to image the microballoon. The deconvolution of the recorded image allows one to reconstruct the image of the neutron source, and this technique allows one to obtain images at a lower neutron yield than with a conventional pinhole camera. The choice of the experimental conditions is a trade-off between the Phébus conditions, the spatial resolution, and the image reconstruction method that is related to the signalto-noise ratio. The sensitivity of the diagnostic is strongly dependent on the number of scintillator photons that are collected by the recording system. The neutron measurement threshold of our experimental setup is typically 2 × 1010 neutrons/shot for neutron source sizes of 800 μm.

An electrically calibrated bolometer designed to measure VUV and soft X-ray radiation in tokamaks was installed at the end of the calibration beam line used by CEL-V at the LURE synchrotron. Low-noise electronics and an adequate data acquisition enabled absolute measurements of power densities as low as 1 μW/cm2. Power density measurements are presented. At the same location several soft X-ray detectors used in laser-plasma interaction studies were installed and their absolute calibration was performed (photocathodes, photodiodes, etc.). Calibration results are presented and compared with a Henke model for photocathode response.