Planar excilamp on rare gas chlorides pumped by a transverse self-sustained discharge

The design and parameters of a UV–VUV spontaneous radiation source – an excilamp operating on chlorides of rare gases ArCl^*, KrCl^* and XeCl^* in the wavelength range 175–308 nm are presented. The Ne–Xe(Kr, Ar)–HCl mixtures were excited by a high-pressure self-sustained discharge with spark preionisation. It is shown that upon pumping mixtures of rare gases and halogens by a transverse discharge, the intensities of the B–X emission band of molecules ArCl^*, KrCl^* and XeCl^* are comparable and up to 90% of the emission energy of excilamps can be concentrated in the UV region. The peak UV power density at 222 and 308 nm on the output window of the excilamp was ~2 kW cm^-2 for the pulse energy up to ~3 mJ. The output emission energy of the excilamp at 175 nm achieved ~0.6 mJ and the peak power density was ~0.4 kW cm^-2.