Amplification of 193-nm femtosecond seed pulses generated by third-order, nonresonant, difference-frequency mixing in xenon

Third-order, nonresonant, difference-frequency (2ω1 − ω2) mixing in Xe gas was used to generate femtosecond-time-scale UV pulses, tunable near 193 nm. Subsequent amplification of these pulses in an ArF excimer gain module led to the production of ≃300-fs, ≃300-μJ optical pulses at 193 nm.