Atmospheric pressure operation of an electron beam excited KrF laser using Kr/F2mixtures

Atmospheric pressure operation of a KrF laser pumped by 50‐ns electron beams was experimentally investigated. For a 1‐atm mixture of Kr and F2 without diluent, a specific output energy of 4.2 J/1 was obtained at 1.7‐MW/cm3 excitation rate. Under this condition the intrinsic efficiency was about 5% (6% was maximum at 20% Kr in argon diluent) which was comparable to that from 1‐atm normal (10% Kr) mixtures.