Coaxially excited gas lasers: toward the vacuum ultraviolet region

A new type of co-axial discharge gas laser has been developed for obtaining UV laser light. We have developed small co-axial discharge tubes of the inner diameters of 3 mm to 9 mm, and the lengths of 6 to 15 cm. The laser tube was made by ceramic pipe with two metallic electrodes at both ends. The excitation discharge was activated by using conventional capacitor transfer circuit with a special pre-ionization discharge through the ceramic pipe. The output energy of nitrogen laser was more than 0.7 mJ with pure nitrogen gas, and was about 0.1 mJ for XeCl laser. The repetition rate was increased up to 100 Hz without the high speed gas flow. This repetition rate was limited by the power supply, and no fatal degradation was observed.