Generation of femtosecond vacuum-ultraviolet pulses

High power femtosecond pulses in the Vacuum Ultra Violet (VUV) have been generated through the nonlinear interaction of femtosecond KrF pulses with xenon and argon gas. Under near resonant two photon excitation of xenon by a femtosecond KrF laser, parametric four wave mixing processes lead to VUV pulses at 147 and 108 nm with pulse energies in the 10 µJ range. Tuning is demonstrated by mixing the KrF pulse with a 500 fs dye laser pulse at 497 nm, resulting in 165 nm emission. In argon, a three photon resonance leads to third harmonic generation at 83 nm and micro joule level pulses near 127 nm generated by a six wave mixing process. Since the spectra of the VUV pulses show an ionization-induced blue shift with increasing KrF laser intensity, the VUV pulses can be shown to have temporal duration less than the pulse width (450 fs) of the KrF laser. Blue shifting of the third harmonic of the KrF laser in argon is dominated by a reduction in the neutral gas density rather than by an increase in the electron density.