Dense plasma interferometry with a tabletop soft X-ray laser and an amplitude division interferometer based on diffraction gratings

We have demonstrated a novel Mach-Zehnder soft x-ray interferometer that us es diffraction gratings as beam splitters. The interferometer was used toge ther with a 46.9nm tabletop soft x-ray laser, to map the evolution of the e lectron density distribution of a large-scale laser created plasma.