A Time Resolved Pinhole Camera for Observation of Nanosecond Duration XUV Plasma Emission.

A vacuum diode with rear mounted Pilot-B scintillator has been coupled with a conventional evacuated pinhole camera. The cathode of the diode is fabricated from 2 micrometer thick polycarbonate Kimfol with a 200 A aluminum layer on the rear surface. Incident photons with energies above the carbon K edge 284 eV are highly absorbed in the polycarbonate but photons with energies below the K edge are absorbed in the aluminum and produce photoelectrons. This yields a photoelectron sensitivity which is peaked at approximately 275 eV. The photoelectrons are accelerated by a 10 kV cathode potential to an aluminum anode coating on the scintillator and scintillation photons are observed with an image converter camera. Streak photographs of exploded-wire XUV radiation taken with this system are presented.