Development Of Robust Multilayer Optics For Use In High-Peak Power Radiation Environments

In many applications, x-ray mulhilayer mirrors are exposed to high peak fluxes of x-rays with subsequent damage to the mirror. Mirror damage is a particularly severe problem with the use of multilayers as cavity optics for short wavelength x-ray lasers. Intense optical and x-ray radiation, from the x-ray laser plasma amplifier, often damages the multilayer mirror on time scales of hundreds of picoseconds. The phenomenon of multilayer mirror damage by pulsed xray emission has been studied using short duration (500 psec) bursts of soft x-rays from a laser produced gold plasma. The results of the experiments will be compared with some simple models and the possibility of increasing the damage thresholds of short wavelength multilayer mirrors will be discussed.