Efficient electric-discharge XeF laser pumped by a generator with an inductive energy storage

The parameters of discharge and laser radiation in an Ne–Xe–NF₃ mixture excited by a double discharge from a generator with an inductive energy storage and a current interrupter based on semiconductor SOS diodes are studied. It is shown that a high-voltage prepulse formed by a generator with inductive energy storage increases considerably the stability and duration of volume discharge in mixtures with NF₃, and also increases the emission energy and pulse duration of laser radiation at the B–X transition of XeF^* molecules. In the case of spark preionisation, radiation pulses with a total duration of up to 200 ns and the full width at half-maximum up to 100 ns are obtained. The maximum output energy of an XeF laser (λ = 348, 351 and 353 nm) was 0.5 J for the electric efficiency up to 1.6%.