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Development and operation characteristics of a repetitively pulsed UV spark pre-ionized XeCl (Xenon Chloride) excimer laser is described. The laser uses discharge pumped CC charge transfer excitation. A compact gas circulation loop was adopted to achieve high repetition rate operation. The laser generates optical pulses of energy 150 mJ at 150 Hz reliably. The electrical to optical conversion efficiency obtained is 1%. The laser pulse duration is ∼8 nS (FWHM). The single fill gas lifetime have been found to be 2 × 10 6 shots for 20% reduction of energy without any halogen injection. The system is compact and reliable.

A compact spark pre-ionized pulser sustainer TE-CO 2 laser that can produce an output energy of one joule with an overall efficiency of 12•4% is presented. Optical pulses have durations of 7•15 µs FWHM. Here, the laser uses all solid-state excitation (ASSE) circuit and the discharge formed between two uniform field electrodes placed 1•5 cm apart ultimately leads to a discharge volume of 50 cm × 1•5 cm × 1•5 cm.

New resonator cavity configurations, namely, the prism resonator and unstable prism resonator, are demonstrated for the first time in an excimer (XeCl) laser with interesting and novel results. High misalignment tolerance ∼50 mrad is achieved with considerably reduced beam divergence of less than ∼1 mrad without reduction in output power capabilities of the laser. The misalignment tolerance of ∼50 mrad is a dramatic improvement of ∼25 times compared to ∼2 mrad normally observed in standard excimer laser with plane-plane cavity. Increase in depth of focus from 3 mm to 5.5 mm was also achieved in case of prism resonator configuration with an improvement of about 60%. Unstable prism resonator configuration is demonstrated here in this paper with further reduction in beam divergence to about 0.5 mrad using plano-convex lens as output coupler. The misalignment tolerance in case of unstable prism resonator was retained at about 30 mrad which is a high value compared to standard unstable resonators. The output beam spot was completely filled with flat-top profile with prism resonator configurations, which is desired for various material processing applications. Focusing properties and beam divergence in case of prism resonator have been investigated using SEM (scanning electron microscope) images. SEM images of the focused spot size (∼20 μm holes) on metal sheet indicate beam divergence of about 0.05 mrad which is about 1.5 times diffraction limit. Energy contained in this angle is thus sufficient for micro-machining applications. Clean and sharp edges of the micro-holes show high pointing stability with multiple shot exposures. Such characteristics of the excimer laser system will be extremely useful in micro-machining and other field applications.