Theoretical evaluation of electron-beam-excited vacuum-ultraviolet F2 lasers

A theoretical kinetic model for an electron-beam-excited F2 laser (157 nm) was successfully developed to evaluate the performance characteristics in terms of electron-beam excitation rate, pumping pulse width, and total operating pressure. As a result, it is made clear that a high excitation rate (above 0.2 MW/cm3 atm) is essential to obtain efficient laser operation. An intrinsic laser efficiency of 4.3% is obtainable when a 6.5-atm mixture of He/F2=1000/1 pumped at an excitation rate of 0.5 MW/cm3 atm, giving a laser output of over 4 J/l. It is also found that a higher laser output is obtainable with increasing total operating pressure, while the intrinsic laser efficiency slowly decreases.