Feasibility of the construction of an electric-discharge excimer laser with a condensed rare gas as the active medium

The feasibility of stimulated emission from solid or liquid rare gases (RG) is considered, particularly in the case of xenon pumped by an electric discharge. An analysis is made of the possibility of establishing a homogeneous electric discharge in a liquid or a crystal in such a way that the bulk of the discharge energy is used to excite RG₂ excitons. It should be possible to reach a laser output power of 30 kW in the form of pulses up to 1 ms in duration and the efficiency should be up to 30%. The estimates obtained and an analysis of the published data show that the construction of efficient excimer lasers with condensed xenon, krypton, or argon as the active medium (emitting at wavelengths of 172, 145, and 128 nm, respectively) is not only possible in principle, but should be realisable in practice.