Background-free determination of the duration of ultraviolet radiation pulses generated by a femtosecond excimer system

Background-free determination of the duration of femtosecond ultraviolet radiation pulses generated in an excimer system was performed for the first time. The method of noncollinear second harmonic generation on reflection from the surface of a nonlinear crystal was used. It was found that amplification of femtosecond pulses in an XeCl excimer amplifier did not exhibit coherent effects.