HIGH-PULSE REPETITION RATE LIMITATIONS IN A HIGH AVERAGE POWER XeCl LASER.

Abstract

Potential applications of high average power ultraviolet lasers are frequently used in fields as different as semiconductor processing, photo-chemistry, long-range communications, and laser-matter interactions. A full scale testbed called 'LUX' for 'Laser Ultraviolet preionise par rayons X' has been developed, in order to study the processes which could limit such an extrapolation. Some of these are related to the active medium inhomogeneities induced by the repetitive deposition of a large amount of electrical energy in the flowing gas mixture to achieve population inversion in the active medium. Emphasis is on these kinds of phenomena. Correlation between the aerodynamic perturbations and discharge instabilities is pointed out.