Tunable Lasers Handbook

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Tunable Excimer Lasers

R.C. Sze,     Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, New Mexico

D.G. Harris,     Rockwell International Canoga Park, California

1. INTRODUCTION

Excimer lasers are pulsed gas lasers that intrinsically offer efficient and powerful broadband emission at several spectral regions throughout the ultraviolet. The spectral widths are typically 2 nm. An exception to this categorization is the XeF laser with its broadly tunable C→A transition (approximately 50 nm) in the visible. The broad tunability results from the steeply repulsive A state.

Excimer lasers have two primary formation channels for the excited state: (1) recombination of positive rare gas ions with halide ions and (2) reactions of excited rare gas atoms ...