High power UV and VUV pulsed excilamp

This paper reports on the pulse sources of spontaneous UV and VUV radiation based on the non-equilibrium high-pressure gas discharge plasma. Emission characteristics of a runaway preionized diffuse discharge plasma of inert gases and its halogenides under pressure up to 12 atm and at high specific power of excitation (up to ~100 MW/cm³) have been investigated. In xenon the highest power achieved up to 8 MW. At pressure of 1.2 atm, the energy of spontaneous Xe₂* dimmers radiation in the full solid angle was ~45 mJ/cm³, and the FWHM of a radiation pulse was ~110 ns. The spontaneous radiation power monotonic rise and decreasing of pulse duration in xenon was observed at pressures up to 12 atm. The power of ~1 MW /cm³ at duration of ~8 ns of Xe₂* dimmers radiation was obtained at this pressure. The highest pulsed power densities of KrCl*, XeCl*, XeBr*, and KrBr* molecules radiation were 3.7 kW/cm², 3.1 kW/cm², 4.5 kW/cm², and 2.1 kW/cm² at the efficiencies 5%, 4.8%, 5.5%, and 4%, respectively. At this conditions input energy to discharge plasma was ~1 J.