High-repetition-rate terawatt excimer laser system with gated gain amplification

A high-repetition-rate (10-Hz), terawatt excimer laser system was developed by using a discharged-pumped, wide-aperture (6 cm x 4 cm) amplifier. A new scheme of gated gain amplification was applied to the final stage for the increase of the output energy along with the suppression of the amplified spontaneous emission. An output energy of 410 mJ was obtained with a pulse width of 280 fsec and an amplified spontaneous emission of 10%, resulting in a peak power of 1.5 TW by two beams. The beam was focused by an off-axis parabolic mirror to a spot size of 2.3 microm x 2.4 microm.