Abstract

Over the past several years, great progress has been made in the generation of coherent radiation in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) spectral region. Several demonstrations of laser action have been reported as well as a wide variety of coherent sources based on nonlinear optical techniques such as harmonic generation, sum frequency generation, and anti-Stokes Raman scattering. Each type of source has a different combination of the following characteristics: wavelength, tunability, intensity, spectral width, efficiency, and repetition rate. The strengths and weaknesses of any particular generation technique depend on the application envisioned. A review of these developments is presented and comparisons among various sources are drawn with a selection of applications in mind.

© 1985 Optical Society of America