Highly charged ion production by intense, ultrashort laser pulse excitation of solids

Highly charged ions are produced by picosecond and femtosecond laser irradi ation of solids at intensities up to 10(16) Wcm(-2), The highly dense and e xcited plasma produced emits hard X-ray radiation which is measured using s olid state detectors. Analysis of K X-ray emission from aluminium indicates the presence of highly charged ions Al-q2. The dependence of X-ray emissio n on polarization and wavelength is also reported We present a simple and p owerful technique for estimating the absolute X-ray yield from such plasmas . The analysis is based on the Bose-Einstein statistics of the photon arriv al at the detector.