Multijoule performance of the photolytically pumped XeF(C→A) laser

An XeF( ) laser with output up to 5.8 J/pulse has been demonstrated. The photolytic pumping scheme begins with -beam excitation of xenon to produce Xe*2fluorescence at 172 nm. This VUV radiation is transmitted through an array of CaF2windows into the laser cell, where it photodissociates XeF2to produce primarily XeF( ). Collisions with N2buffer gas relax the excited states to XeF( ), which lases on a transition centered at 481 nm and continuously tunable over more than ±35 nm. Typical values of the experimental parameters were as follows. The 420 kV, 1 m -beam source delivered an average current of 10 A/cm²over an aperture 14 × 100 cm for pulse lengths up to 1 μs. Total -beam energy available was 3.5 kJ, of which 2.4 kJ was deposited in the xenon. The total VUV energy radiated was 720 J, of which 115 J was coupled into the laser cell. This produced 32 J of available XeF* energy, of which up to 18 percent was extracted as laser energy. The total system efficiency was 0.2 percent. Optimized designs should achieve better than 1 percent efficiency.