Generation of broadly tunable femtosecond vacuum-ultraviolet pulses.

Tunable femtosecond vacuum-ultraviolet radiation in the range omega(D) = 102-124 nm has been generated by twophoton-resonant and near-resonant four-wave difference-frequency mixing (omega(D) = 2omega(p) - omega(I)) in krypton and argon by use of intense 250-fs ArF laser pulses (omega(p)) and tunable femtosecond signal and idler pulses (omega(I)) generated by an optical parametric generator.

Generation of tunable femtosecond pulses to as low as 172.7 nm by sum-frequency mixing in lithium triborate.

A tunable 1-kHz repetition-rate regenerative Ti:sapphire amplifier system is used to produce 200-fs vacuum-ultraviolet pulses in the range of 172.7-187 nm by phase-matched sum-frequency mixing in lithium triborate of the Ti:sapphire's fourth harmonic and a parametrically generated infrared pulse.

High-repetition-rate high-power femtosecond ArF laser source.

170-fs, 0.8-microJ optical pulses at 193 nm generated by frequency quadrupling of high-power Ti:sapphire laser pulses are amplified in an ArF gain module. Double-pass amplification at a 400-Hz repetition rate resulted in 290-mW average power with pulse durations of ~ 300 fs.

Intensity-dependent transmission properties of window materials at 193-nm irradiation.

We measured the transmission of MgF(2), CaF(2), BaF(2), and fused-silica window materials, using 0.8-ps optical pulses at 193 nm with intensities from 1 to 300 GW/cm(2). The two-photon absorption coefficients beta are extracted from these measurements. The excited excitonic fluorescence in CaF(2) and BaF(2) shows a quadratic dependence on the irradiation intensity in a wide range.

Efficient generation of subpicosecond seed pulses at 193 nm for amplification in ArF gain modules by frequency mixing in nonlinear optical crystals.

Phase-matched sequential frequency mixing in three ,beta-barium borate crystals was used for efficient generation of subpicosecond UV pulses tunable at approximately 193 nm. Double-pass amplification of these seed pulses in a conventional ArF excimer gain module resulted in 800-fs, 1.5-mJ optical pulses.