Conversion efficiency of extreme ultraviolet radiation in laser-produced plasmas

Abstract

A simple analytical model is presented for the conversion of laser beam energy into extreme ultraviolet radiation. The model is compared with experimental results to show good agreements under different conditions of the laser wavelength λL, the laser intensity SL, the pulse duration tL, and the target atomic number Z0. It turns out that relatively high conversion efficiencies are obtained when the Planck optical thickness of the plasma is τ≈0.3-0.5, which is attained under an optimized combination of SL and tL once λL is fixed. The λL scaling on the conversion efficiency is derived. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.