Amplification characteristics of an efficient discharge-pumped KrF laser

The significant increase of output energy of a UV-preionized KrF laser has been obtained by a change of electrode separation. This fact is explained by the measured impedance and deposit energy in a discharge. The efficient amplification has been performed by using an exactly synchronized amplification system. The maximum output energy was 0.75 J/pulse with a pulsewidth of 40 ns and a total efficiency of 0.8 percent. The saturation intensity and small-signal gain coefficient for KrF laser have been measured. The saturation intensity was 1.7 MW/sq cm and the small-signal gain coefficient reached 4.7 percent/cm at a charging voltage of 35 kV.