A study of angular distribution of X-ray line radiation emitted
from a laser-produced plasma is presented. Plasma was produced
by irradiating a planar magnesium target using single laser
pulses of 6 J, 4.5 ns (FWHM) from an Nd:glass laser system.
Angular distribution of X-ray emission in the spectral range
of 7–10 Å was recorded using a single X-ray crystal
spectrograph. X-ray emission intensity for different resonance
lines is observed to decrease up to an angle of ∼45°
with respect to target normal, followed by a significant increase
at higher angles. The observed departure of angular distribution
from a monotonically decreasing behavior is broadly in agreement
with the calculations of the escape factor of the radiation
at different angles from a thick disk-shaped plasma using a
spectroscopic code RATION.