Surface roughness-aided hard X-ray emission from carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Efficient low debris hard X-ray source based on Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes (MWNT) irradiated by intense, femtosecond laser over an intensity range of 10¹⁵–10¹⁷ W cm⁻² μm² is reported. The MWNT targets yield two orders of magnitude higher X-rays (indicating significant enhancement of laser coupling) and three orders of magnitude lower debris compared to conventional metallic targets under identical experimental conditions. The simple analytical model explains the basic experimental observations and also serves as a guide to design efficient targets to achieve low-debris laser plasma-based hard X-ray sources at low laser intensities suitable for multi-kHz operation.