Short-pulse high-intensity excimer lasers — A powerful tool for the generation of coherent VUV and XUV radiation

摘要

Different approaches for the generation of coherent VUV and XUV radiation with a 400 fs KrF excimer-laser system are studied. In nonlinear optical experiments it is shown that four-wave difference-frequency mixing in Xe, using a near two-photon resonance with the KrF laser radiation, is well suited for the generation of tunable VUV radiation in the range 130–200 nm. Conversion efficiencies of 2 and output energies up to 260 μJ have been demonstrated. Further prospects to achieve μJ energies are discussed. Using this VUV source and the KrF laser, powerful XUV radiation can be generated by different low-order frequency mixing processes. In first experiments on this subject, direct frequency tripling of the KrF laser pulse has resulted in 14 μJ XUV radiation at 8