Abstract.A liquid jet of either nitrogen or argon of 20 μm diameter was exposed to intense laser fields with pulse durations between 70 fs and 250 ps, leading to intensities of 1016 W cm-2 and 1013 W cm-2, respectively. The emission of extreme UV light and soft X-rays shows the characteristic lines of hydrogen-like nitrogen and carbon-like argon. For nitrogen the emitted photon flux at 250 ps was about two orders of magnitude higher than for 70 fs pulses. A weak dependence on the laser polarization with respect to the liquid jet axis was found. The kinetic energy of the emitted ions easily exceeded 100 keV for nitrogen and 200 keV for argon for a pulse duration close to 2 ps.