Abstract

There are a number of potential applications of excimer lasers which require energies significantly higher than those achieved to date in discharge-pumped devices. Because of the apparent specific energy limitation on the order of 1 Joule/1iter-atmosphere and kinetics limitations on the pressure, output energies of tens of Joules or greater will require large volume devices. We are presently studying the problems of scaling up these lasers and as a first step have constructed a XeCl discharge laser with 3 liter active volume.

© 1982 Optical Society of America