Bright, low debris, ultrashort hard X-ray table top source using carbon nanotubes

Abstract

We demonstrate that carbon nanotube coated surfaces produce two orders of magnitude brighter hard X-ray emission, in laser produced plasmas, than planar surfaces. It is accompanied by three orders of magnitude reduction in ion debris which is also low ZZ and nontoxic. The increased emission is a direct consequence of the enhancement in local fields and is via the simple and well known “lightning rod” effect. We propose that this carbon nanotube hard X-ray source is a simple, inexpensive, and high repetition rate hard X-ray point source for a variety of applications in imaging, lithography, microscopy and material processing.