Abstract

Excimer lasers have the potential to provide extremely high peak power if they can be forced to operate with pulse lengths less than the characteristic upper state storage time (≈ 3 nsec) so that amplification is fluence limited rather than intensity limited. Generation of such pulses is for example relevant to the problem of laser induced plasma generation for the purpose of x-ray generation. We have therefore undertaken a study to find ways of generating relatively low power short UV pulses which could be used as the input to a larger scale excimer amplifier.

© 1983 Optical Society of America