Temporal and spectral deconvolution of data from diamond, photoconductive devices

Diamond, photoconductive devices (DPCDs) have proven to be stable detectors of x-ray emission from plasmas. An array of six DPCDs is used on the OMEGA target chamber to measure the temporal and spectral dependence of x rays emitted from targets. 100 ps laser pulses incident on high-Z targets are used to measure the time response of the detectors, bias circuits, cables, and digitizer. This information is used to deconvolve the measured data to extract the temporal shape of the x-ray emission. The x-ray spectrum is measured by placing absorber filters for a specific x-ray energy region in front of the DPCDs. The data are analyzed with a linear algebraic method to determine the spectral shape. This technique removes the need to apply smoothing to the spectral analysis and provides “confidence bands” for the x-ray spectrum.