Laser-Driven, tunable, high-yield x-ray source from a hybrid laser plasma accelerator used for radiography*

A broadband (10 keV to MeV), high yield (\textgreater 10\textasciicircum 10 photons/keV/Sr), small source size (\textless 20-100 um) x-ray source has been developed using a hybrid laser plasma accelerator on the Titan laser (700 fs, 140 J). The hybrid laser plasma accelerator uses a combination of self-modulated laser wakefield acceleration and direct laser acceleration to generate a high energy (\textgreater 200 MeV) low divergence (\textless 100 mrad), high-charge (70nC) beam of electrons. The electrons are used to generate x-rays using a combination of three mechanisms: betatron radiation, inverse Compton scattering, and bremsstrahlung radiation. The combination of these x-ray generation mechanisms and control over the electron beam provides a method for tuning the emitted x-ray energy spectra, source size, and yield. In this work we optimize and characterize the x-ray source to radiograph several high and low-Z objects with several spatial resolutions.