Refractive compensation in slab target geometries

Results showing the enhancement effect on soft X‐ray lasing emission intensity with target substrate curvature of up to 1 mrad per mm, which compensated for refraction due to electron density gradients present in the gain region of a Ne‐like Ge expanding plasma are shown. Time integrated relative intensity and pointing data are presented for the Ne‐like Ge 19.6, 23.6, and 28.6 nm 3p‐3s transitions. A proposed simple illumination geometry for compensating for refraction due to lateral electron density gradients is also presented.