Soft x-ray detection with diamond photoconductive detectors

Abstract
Photoconductive detectors (PCDs) fabricated from natural IIa diamonds have been used to measure the x‐ray power emitted from laser‐produced plasmas. The detector was operated without any absorbing filters which distort the x‐ray power measurement. The 5.5 eV band gap of the detector material practically eliminates its sensitivity to scattered laser radiation thus permitting filterless operation. Excellent agreement was achieved between a diamond PCD and a multichannel photoemissive diode array in the measurement of radiated x‐ray power and energy.