Excimer emission from microhollow cathode discharges in rare gas halides

Summary form only given. High-pressure gas discharges in rare gas halides have found applications in excimer lamps and excimer lasers. The lifetime of high-pressure glow discharges in rare gas halides and consequently the time of excimer emission are limited by instabilities to values on the order of 10 ns. Stable operation, however, can be achieved by operating rare gas halide discharges in a microhollow cathode discharge (MHCD) geometry. Similar to MHCDs in rare gases, direct current discharges in rare gas halides could be operated up to atmospheric pressure using cathodes with hole diameters on the order of 100 /spl mu/m. High pressure discharges in static ArF (1%F, 5% Ar, 94%He) and XeCl (1.5%Xe, 0.03 HCl, 0.06% H/sub 2/, 98.41 Ne) mixtures were found to be intense sources of excimer radiation at 193 nm and 308 nm, respectively. The FWHM of both lines, the ArF and the XeCl line, is 3-4 nm. Sustaining voltages are 400 V for ArF and 190 V for XeCl, at currents of several mA. Absolute measurements showed that the VUV/UV radiant power for both sources is between 1%-3% of the input electrical power. Higher values seem to be obtainable with discharges operated in flowing gases.