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Optimized online filter stack spectrometer for ultrashort X-ray pulses

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Abstract

Currently, with the advent of high-repetition-rate laser-plasma experiments, the demand for online diagnosis for the X-ray spectrum is increasing because the laser-plasma-generated X-ray spectrum is very important for characterizing electron dynamics and applications. In this study, scintillators and silicon PIN (P-type–intrinsic-N-type semiconductor) diodes were used to construct a wideband online filter stack spectrometer. The X-ray sensor and filter arrangement was optimized using a genetic algorithm to minimize the condition number of the response matrix. Consequently, the unfolding error was significantly reduced based on numerical experiments. The detector responses were quantitatively calibrated by irradiating the scintillator and PIN diode with various nuclides and comparing the measured \(\gamma\)-ray peaks. A prototype 15-channel spectrometer was developed by integrating an X-ray detector with front- and back-end electronics. The prototype spectrometer could record X-ray pulse signals at a repetition rate of 1 kHz. Furthermore, an optimized spectrometer was employed to record the real-time spectra of laser-driven bremsstrahlung sources. This optimized spectrometer offers a compact solution for spectrum diagnostics of ultrashort X-ray pulses, exhibiting improved accuracy in terms of spectrum measurements and repetition rates, and could be widely used in next-generation high-repetition-rate high-power laser facilities.

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Data availibility

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Science Data Bank at https://cstr.cn/31253.11.sciencedb.j00186.00405 and https://www.doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.j00186.00405.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Zhi-Meng Zhang and Bo Zhang for their assistance in the experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Science and Technology on Plasma Physics Laboratory, Laser Fusion Research Center, CAEP, Mianyang, 621900, China

    Jia-Xing Wen, Ming-Hai Yu, Yu-Chi Wu, Yong-Hong Yan, Shao-Yi Wang, Yue Yang, Fang Tan, Xiao-Hui Zhang, Jie Zhang, Wen-Bo Mo, Jing-Qin Su, Wei-Min Zhou, Yu-Qiu Gu & Zong-Qing Zhao

  2. Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jia-Xing Wen, Ge Ma, Huai-Zhong Gao, Wen-Bo Mo & Ming Zeng

  3. Key Laboratory of Particle and Radiation Imaging (Tsinghua University), Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100084, China

    Ge Ma, Huai-Zhong Gao & Ming Zeng

  4. School of Information Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, 621010, China

    Lu-Shan Wang, Yu-Gang Zhou & Qiang Li

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  1. Jia-Xing Wen
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  2. Ge Ma
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by J-XW, GM, M-HY, Y-CW, Y-HY, S-YW, H-ZG, L-SW, Y-GZ, YY, FT, X-HZ, JZ and W-BM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by J-XW, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ming Zeng or Zong-Qing Zhao.

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Conflict of interest

Ming Zeng is an editorial board member for Nuclear Science and Techniques and was not involved in the editorial review, or the decision to publish this article. All authors declare that there are no conflict of interest.

Additional information

This work was partially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 12004353, 11975214, 11991071, 11905202, 12175212, and 12120101005) and the Key Laboratory Foundation of the Science and Technology on Plasma Physics Laboratory (Nos. 6142A04200103 and 6142A0421010).

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Wen, JX., Ma, G., Yu, MH. et al. Optimized online filter stack spectrometer for ultrashort X-ray pulses. NUCL SCI TECH 35, 48 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-024-01391-8

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