Temporal behavior of unresolved transition array emission in water window soft x-ray spectral region from multiply charged ions.

We have characterized the spectral structure and the temporal history of the laser-produced high-Z multi-charged ion plasmas for the efficient water window soft x-ray sources. Strong unresolved transition array emission was observed due to 4d-4f and 4f-5g transitions from Au, Pb, and Bi plasmas in the 280-700 eV photon energy region. The temporal behavior of the emission was essentially similar of that of the laser pulse with a slight delay between different transitions. These results provide feedback for accurate modeling of the atomic processes with the radiative hydrodynamic simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]