Introduces the principles, techniques, and applications of lasers for wavelengths shorter than ultraviolet. Mostly concerned with the various methods of pumping, including exciting plasma ions, electron capture into excited ionic states, ionization of atoms and ions, and such alternative approaches.

These proceedings comprise of invited and contributed papers presented at the 13th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers (ICXRL 2012) which was held 11–15 June 2012 in Paris, France, in the famous Quartier Latin, inside the historical Center of Cordeliers. This conference is part of a continuing series dedicated to recent developments and applications of x-ray lasers and other coherent x-ray sources with attention to supporting technologies and instrumentation. New results in the generation of intense coherent x-rays and progress towards practical devices and their applications are reported in these proceedings, including areas of research in plasma-based x-ray lasers, 4th generation accelerator-based sources and higher harmonic generation. Recent achievements related to the increase of the repetition rate up to 100 Hz and shorter wavelength collisional plasma-based soft x-ray lasers down to about 7 nm are presented. Seeding the amplifying plasma with a femtosecond high-order harmonic of infrared laser was foreseen as the required breakthrough to break the picosecond frontier. Numerical simulations based on the Maxwell-Bloch model are presented in these proceedings, transposing the chirped pulse amplification technique to the x-ray domain in order to increase the time over which the femtosecond seed can be amplified. These proceedings also include innovative applications of soft x–ray lasers based on techniques and diagnostics relevant to topical domains such as EUV lithography, inertial confinement fusion, or warm dense matter physics.

These proceedings gather a selection of invited and contributed papers presented during the 16th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers (ICXRL 2018), held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 7 to 12 October 2018. The conference is part of an ongoing series dedicated to recent developments in the science and technology of X-ray lasers and other coherent X-ray sources, with an additional focus on supporting technologies, instrumentation and applications. The book highlights advances in a wide range of fields including laser and discharge-pumped plasma X-ray lasers, the injection and seeding of X-ray amplifiers, high-order harmonic generation and ultrafast phenomena, X-ray free electron lasers, novel schemes for (in)coherent XUV, X-ray and γ-ray generation, XUV and X-ray imaging, optics and metrology, X-rays and γ-rays for fundamental science, the practical implementation of X-ray lasers, XFELs and super-intense lasers, and the applications and industrial uses of X-ray lasers.

Nonlinear Optics, Quantum Optics, and Ultrafast Phenomena with X-Rays is an introduction to cutting-edge science that is beginning to emerge on state-of-the-art synchrotron radiation facilities and will come to flourish with the x-ray free-electron lasers currently being planned. It is intended for the use by scientists at synchrotron radiation facilities working with the combination of x-rays and lasers and those preparing for the science at x-ray free-electron lasers. In the past decade synchrotron radiation sources have experienced a tremendous increase in their brilliance and other figures of merit. This progress, driven strongly by the scientific applications, is still going on and may actually be accelerating with the advent of x-ray free-electron lasers. As a result, a confluence of x-ray and laser physics is taking place, due to the increasing importance of laser concepts, such as coherence and nonlinear optics to the x-ray community and the importance of x-ray optics to the laser-generation of ultrashort pulses of x-rays.

These proceedings comprise invited and contributed papers presented at the 14th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers (ICXRL 2014). This conference is part of a continuing series dedicated to recent developments and applications of x-ray lasers and other coherent x-ray sources with attention to supporting technologies and instrumentation. New results in the generation of intense, coherent x-rays and progress toward practical devices and their applications in numerous fields are reported. Areas of research in plasma-based x-ray lasers, 4th generation accelerator-based sources and higher harmonic generation, and other x-ray generation schemes are covered. The scope of ICXRL 2014 included, but was not limited to: Laser-pumped X-ray lasers Discharge excitation and other X-ray laser pumping methods Injection/seeding of X-ray amplifiers New lasing transitions and novel X-ray laser schemes High Harmonic sources-Free-electron laser generation in the XUV and X-ray range Novel schemes for coherent XUV and X-ray generation XUV and X-ray optics and metrology-Driving laser technology Theory and modeling of X-ray gain medium and beam characteristics Applications of high brightness and ultrashort X-ray sources

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "X-Ray Free-Electron Laser" that was published in Applied Sciences