Pinching discharge in nitrogen filled capillary for soft x-ray laser recombination pumping

Summary form only given, as follows. We intend to get lasing with hydrogen-like nitrogen ions N/sup 6+/ created in under-cooled plasma during capillary pinch decay. The collisional recombination is judged as the principle pumping process. The inversion population is expected at the Balmer alpha quantum transition resulting in the lasing at the wavelength 13.4 nm. To design a proper experiment we have performed computer simulations of plasma dynamics and emission characteristics and compare them with the results previously obtained for carbon. Results for both ablating polyacetal and non-ablating ceramic capillaries for various capillary diameters and filling pressures are judged. Using IONMIX code we have evaluated ionization fractions and thermodynamic properties of plasma under quasi-stationary approximation.