Laser-driven hard-x-ray generation based on ultrafast selected energy X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements of Ni compounds.

Three Ni compounds were studied by ultrafast selected energy x-ray absorption spectroscopy using a laser-driven electron x-ray source with a tungsten target. The measured K edges of these Ni compounds using this self-referencing method were made identical to those measured with synchrotron x-ray sources. This enabled us to determine the absolute peak positions of tungsten Lalpha(1) and Lalpha(2) emitted from this source to be within 1 eV of those from the neutral tungsten atoms, which strongly suggested that the x rays were emitted from high energy electrons interacting with tungsten atoms in the solid target. This is the best evidence to date that directly supports the cold atom x-ray generation theory.