A bright point source of ultrashort hard x-rays from laser bioplasmas
Abstract
Micro and nano structures scatter light and amplify local electric fields very effectively. Energy incident as intense ultrashort laser pulses can be converted to x-rays and hot electrons more efficiently with a substrate that suitably modifies the local fields. Here we demonstrate that coating a plain glass surface with a few micron thick layer of an ubiquitous microbe, {\it Escherichia coli}, catapults the brightness of hard x-ray bremsstrahlung emission (up to 300 keV) by more than two orders of magnitude at an incident laser intensity of 10 W cm. This increased yield is attributed to the local enhancement of electric fields around individual {\it E. coli} cells and is reproduced by detailed particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. This combination of laser plasmas and biological targets can lead to turnkey, multi-kilohertz and environmentally safe sources of hard x-rays.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1006.4454,
title = {A bright point source of ultrashort hard x-rays from laser bioplasmas},
author = {M. Krishnamurthy and Sudipta Mondal and Amit D. Lad and Saima Ahmad and V. Narayanan and R. Rajeev and M. Kundu and G. Ravindra Kumar and Krishanu Ray},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1006.4454},
year = {2010}
}