Generation, characterization, and medical utilization of laser-produced emission continua

Summary, in English

Intense continua of electromagnetic radiation of very brief duration are formed in the interaction of focused ultra-short terawatt laser pulses with matter. Two different kinds of experiments, which have been performed utilizing the Lund 10 Hz titanium-doped sapphire terawatt laser system are being described, where visible radiation and X-rays, respectively, have been generated. Focusing into water leads to the generation of a light continuum through self-phase modulation. The propagation of the light through tissue was studied addressing questions related to optical mammography and specific chromophore absorption. When terawatt laser pulses are focused onto a solid target with high nuclear charge Z, intense X-ray radiation of few ps duration and with energies exceeding hundreds of keV is emitted. Biomedical applications of this radiation are described, including differential absorption and gated-viewing imaging.

• Author: Sune Svanberg; Stefan Andersson-Engels; R Cubeddu; E Forster; M Gratz; K Herrlin; G Holzer; L Kiernan; C Af Klinteberg; Anders Persson; A Pifferi; A Sjogren; Claes-Göran Wahlström
• Department/s: Atomic Physics
• Publishing year: 2000
• Language: English
• Pages: 563-570
• Publication/Series: Laser and Particle Beams
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 3
• Full text: - 2 MB; Download statistics
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0263034600183302
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Topic: Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 0263-0346