Reflection of atto-and femtosecond X-ray pulses from aperiodic multilayer mirror

The reflection of femto-and attosecond soft and hard X-ray pulses from multilayer structures (MSs) was investigated. The conditions are formulated under which the pulse shape and duration barely change upon reflection. The MSs are optimized for the reflection of extremely short pulses, and the possibility of compressing chirped pulses is considered. It is shown that the power reflection coefficient can be appreciably larger than unity. The aperiodic MSs capable of effectively reflecting pulses containing no more than three wave periods are calculated.