Development of optically pumped XeF laser technology in NINT

The investigations of the XeF laser bumped by ultraviolet radiation have been studied for more than 20 years in Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology (NINT Xi'an China). Up to now, several XeF laser devices were developed and an integrative experimental system has been set up which is comprised of a laser device, an electrical power supply, a high voltage trigger generator and a mixture gas supply device. Many key technologies were studied in detail and have been applied now. These technologies include section surface discharge, XeF2 photodissociation, synchronal trigger generating, double-sides optical pumping from opposite directions, active mixture gases supplying in real time, gases circulation, and so on. The XeF laser system operating on pulse repetition frequency (PRF) is up to 10 Hz. Two kinds of operating modes were applied. For the open gas flowing mode, the pulse energy of 3.2 J and the average power of 32 W at 10Hz is obtained. For the gases circumrotate mode, the average energy of 20 laser pulses is more than 0.5J.