Toward efficient excimer lasers

The discovery of rare-gas-monohalide and molecular-halogen lasers has led to the development of krypton- and argon-fluoride systems with the capacity to produce 100-joule pulses under direct excitation by electron beams. In a comparison of the two pumping methods, it is found that the controlled-discharge technique gives much higher average power than the avalanche approach. The reactions which take place in the KrF laser are investigated.