<title>Analysis of high-power XeCl excimer laser</title>

Abstract

We consider the performance of high repetition rate XeCl excimer lasers by analyzing the constraints of the discharge parameters, the discharge technique, the shock wave formation and the scaling laws with respect to discharge dimensions and gas densities. It is shown that for high repetition rate the overshoot and charge mode are most suitable because of their lowest amount of fast switching energy that falls within the specifications of commercial long life thyratrons. Fast switching is not only required for better discharge quality but it also limits the heat dissipation of the saturable ferrite switches. An analysis is given of the shock wave development and its consequences on high repetition rate operation. It is found that the shock wave length relative to discharge width is independent on discharge volume. It depends only weakly on the discharge energy. The shock strength for a given discharge energy is inversely proportional to the initial gas density. Shock front disturbances will spread evenly as the shock propagates. For a homogeneous discharge they disappear roughly after a distance equal to the discharge width. With the present analysis scaling laws are derived which state that for optimized conditions the output power depends only on the blower capacity and on the square of the gas pressure.© (1996) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.