A high brightness laser-plasma X-ray source has
been set-up and is presently available at IFAM. A wide
range of diagnostics has been set up to monitor the properties
of the X-ray radiation and to control the main parameters
including photon energy, flux intensity, and pulse duration.
A beam extractor enables access to the X-ray radiation
at atmospheric pressure. A simple, easy-to-use projection
microscope has been built which is capable of single-shot
micron resolution imaging with digital acquisition. Preliminary
biomedical experiments show that the X-ray doses available
on a single laser shot exposure of our source fully meet
the conditions required for an important class of biological
experiments based on X-ray induced DNA damage providing
an ideal alternative to the long time exposures needed
with X-ray tubes
