Using the XFEL to drive the gain of inner-shell X-ray lasers using photoionization and photoexcitation processes

Four years ago an inner-shell X-ray laser was demonstrated at 849 eV in singly ionized neon gas using the LCLS X-FEL at 960 eV to photo-ionize the 1s electron in neutral neon followed by lasing on the 2p-1s transition in singly-ionized neon. It took many decades to demonstrate this scheme because it required a very strong X-ray source that could photoionize the 1s (K shell) electrons in neon on a time scale comparable to the intrinsic auger lifetime in the neon, which is typically 2 fsec. In this work we model the neon inner shell X-ray laser under similar conditions to those used at LCLS and investigate how we can improve the efficiency of the neon laser and reduce the drive requirements by tuning the X-FEL to the 1s-3p transition in neutral neon in order to create gain on the 2p-1s line in neutral neon. We also explore using the XFEL to drive gain on 3-2 transitions in singly-ionized Ar and Cu plasmas.