Flowers, J L (2003) New technolodies for X-ray standards and applications. A study report for the NMS Quantum Metrology Programme. NPL Report. CBTLM 27

Text CBTLM27.pdf Download (771kB)

Abstract

Very rapid progress has been made over the last decade in x-ray technology. The brightness and coherence of available sources has increased remarkably. This report is concerned particularly with, the development of so-called ‘table-top’ x-ray laser sources, the generation of high order harmonics of intense ultrashort optical pulses and advances in soft x-ray optics. These technologies combined open up new areas of metrology and research, they also provide the dramatic scaling down of experiments that once required accelerator-sized sources and hence make this work more widely accessible to industry and small-scale science. This may well lead to much wider adoption of x-ray techniques particularly those using coherent x-rays.
More speculatively, the potential of interactions with nuclear energy levels is discussed. Mössbauer levels have high energies and very high quality factors, and hence are potentially useful as x-ray frequency references; the realisation of this will require further dramatic advances in x-ray technology and metrological techniques.

Item Type:	Report/Guide (NPL Report)
NPL Report No.:	CBTLM 27
Subjects:	Quantum Phenomena
Last Modified:	02 Feb 2018 13:16
URI:	https://eprintspublications.npl.co.uk/id/eprint/2666