A new, better technology for X-ray laser pulses

Intense, extremely short-wave X-ray pulses in the nanometer wavelength range are difficult to produce, but now a new, simpler method has been developed: the starting point is not a titanium-sapphire laser, which had mostly been used for this purpose, but an ytterbium laser. The crucial trick is that the light is then sent through a gas in order to change its properties.