Ultraviolet laser excitation source

A new intense ultraviolet light source has been developed from an array of hypocycloidal pinch (HCP) devices. The basic unit of the array is constructed with three disk electrodes and is capable of producing dense plasmas at temperatures up to 10,000,000 K. Very high input power levels to the array are possible without significantly shortening its useful life, in strong contrast with conventional xenon flashlamps. The new light source, when operated with Ar and Xe gas mixtures at high pressures (~5 x 10(4) Pa), produced a light output of over 100 MW in the near-UV spectral range and successfully pumped an iodine photodissociation laser at 1.315 microm. A xenon recombination laser at 2.027 microm was also pumped in the HCP array.