APL Photonics (Aug 2017)
Spectral evolution of soft x-ray emission from optically thin, high electron temperature platinum plasmas
Abstract
The soft x-ray spectra of heavy element plasmas are frequently dominated by unresolved transition array (UTA) emission. We describe the spectral evolution of an intense UTA under optically thin conditions in platinum plasmas. The UTA was observed to have a peak wavelength around 4.6 nm at line-of-sight averaged electron temperatures less than 1.4 keV at electron densities of (2.5–7.5) × 1013 cm−3. The UTA spectral structure was due to emission from 4d–4f transitions in highly charged ions with average charge states of q = 20–40. A numerical simulation successfully reproduced the observed spectral behavior.