Compact,simple, high-energy,discharge-pumped rare gas halide laser

A simple, lumped capacitor, avalanche discharge excimer laser has been developed which uses a single spark array preionization rod located under a grid electrode to preionize the discharge region. A surface corona discharge is found to play an important role in achieving a more uniform transverse preionization. On KrF, energy in excess of 0.5 J is obtained (?2.4 J/1) with a wide (16 × 25 mm) uniform beam of good divergence (1.8 × 5 mrad) and electrical efficiency above 1%.