Auger-pumped short-wavelength lasers in xenon and krypton

We report studies of new short-wavelength lasers in xenon at 108.9 nm and krypton at 90.7 nm. The lasers are pumped by photoionization of inner-shell electrons followed by Auger decay into excited states. Experiments include measurement of gain and the lifetimes and quenching of the lasing states, the use of a mirror for multipass gain, and studies of the output pulse duration. Numerical simulations which predict gain and the time evolution of the laser output are compared with experiment.