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Nature Photonics 2, 67–68 (1 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/nphoton.2007.285

Extreme-ultraviolet lasers: From tiny seeds to coherent beams

John Costello

It is now more than 20 years since the first demonstration of laser action, or more correctly amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), in a plasma host at extreme UV (EUV) wavelengths. Laser-produced plasmas are useful for this purpose as they are an abundant source of highly charged ions with transitions lying in the EUV and X-ray regions that can be readily pumped into population inversion.