Nonlinear Optics and Laser Spectroscopy in the Vacuum Ultraviolet

Abstract

Over the past ten years enormous strides have been made towards producing novel sources of VUV and XUV radiation using lasers. This work has been motivated by many factors, including studies of highly-excited atomic states; interest in nonlinear optical phenomena; the development of x-ray lasers; and, the long-term prospect of applications of high energy radiation to photolithography in the production of integrated circuits. The spectroscopy community and, particularly, those in molecular spectroscopy, have been less active in fully exploiting the level of sophistication now available using laser techniques for studies of excited states in the VUV and XUV spectral regions. First, we now have the capability of producing high intensity [1–7], continously-tunable, coherent and narrow line width VUV radiation, spanning the 100 nm - 200 nm region, with laboratory-scale dye laser systems.