Novel ultrashort EUV and hard x-ray sources have been developed and characterized. Radiation pulses were produced by combining femtosecond laser technology with a specially designed EUV and x-ray diode. At first, ultrashort electron pulses are generated by photoemission from a photocathode. Then, these electron pulses are accelerated over a short distance towards an high-Z anode. EUV radiation is produced with a silicon anode via L-shell emission, hard-x-rays are generated with a copper anode. Measurements of the pulse duration were performed for hard-x-rays using an advanced streak camera. For high electron pulse charges (several pC), hard-x-ray pulse durations of less than 10 ps were observed. In this contribution we present the concept of our EUV and hard x-ray source. A wide range of experimental parameters is investigated: Different cathode and anode materials were tested, femtosecond laser systems with different parameters are used, the dependence of the radiation pulse length on experimental parameters e.g. laser energy and acceleration voltage is studied.