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Lasing-gas mixture for excimer laser

a gas-discharge laser and mixture technology, which is applied in the direction of lasers, laser details, electrical equipment, etc., can solve the problems of contamination of lasing gas and laser chamber windows, limited continuous laser operation time, and performance degradation

Active Publication Date: 2018-09-06
COHERENT LASERSYST
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  • Application Information

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Problems solved by technology

The duration of continuous operation of the laser is limited by degradation of the lasing gas and of some components of the laser, especially windows in a chamber containing the lasing gas and excitation (discharge) electrodes.
Performance degradation can eventually develop due to chemical and electrical erosion of the discharge electrodes and other surfaces in the highly-reactive halogen-containing atmosphere in the chamber.
Such erosion leads to contamination of the lasing gas and the laser chamber windows.
As a result, interruptions of the laser operation are periodically needed to exchange the lasing gas and to service the laser windows.
However, an increase of the hydrogen concentration above an optimal concentration leads to a degradation of the laser performance and reduction of the laser output energy.
This characteristic, while relatively benign for certain laser-processing operations, such a cutting or ablation of materials, can be problematical for processes that depend more critically on the temporal characteristics of pulse energy delivery.

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  • Lasing-gas mixture for excimer laser
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  • Lasing-gas mixture for excimer laser

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Embodiment Construction

[0018]A reduction in amplitude difference between first and second portions of excimer laser pulses is achieved by replacing the hydrogen additive of prior-art excimer lasing gases with deuterium (D2). Deuterium is the closest isotope of hydrogen, but has slightly different chemical and electrical properties.

[0019]The addition of deuterium instead of hydrogen into the excimer lasing gas provided improvement of the lasing-gas lifetime similar to that discussed above. However, an optimal concentration of deuterium was found to be half the optimal concentration of hydrogen. The total energy-per-pulse was found to be the same as that achieved with the prior-art hydrogen additive. The pulse-to-pulse and long-term pulse-energy stability was similar to that achieved with the hydrogen additive. The deuterium additive in this optimal concentration for lifetime and stability, noticeably and reproducibly reduced the above-discussed amplitude difference between the first and second portions of ...

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Abstract

A xenon chloride (XeCl) excimer laser includes a lasing-gas mixture including a buffer gas, a noble gas, a halogen-donating gas, and deuterium. The deuterium is present in a concentration greater than about 10 parts-per-million.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates in general to gas-discharge lasers. The invention relates in particular to lasing-gas mixtures for excimer gas-discharge lasersDISCUSSION OF BACKGROUND ART[0002]Excimer lasers have a capability to generate laser-radiation having a fundamental wavelength in the ultraviolet (UV) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Operation of excimer lasers is based on an optical transition between different electronically excited states of noble-gas molecules. Such molecules exist only in an electronically excited state and accordingly are generally referred to as “excimers”. The noble-gas halide molecules are created in the excited state by a short and powerful electrical excitation (gas discharge) of between about 1 nanosecond (ns) and 1000 ns duration. Relaxation of the excited molecules to the ground state results in the emission of high-intensity UV light in a laser-resonator, which delivers the UV light as laser-radiation....

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Application Information

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Patent Type & Authority Applications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): H01S3/225H01S3/032H01S3/097
CPCH01S3/225H01S3/097H01S3/032H01S3/2253
Inventor BRAGIN, IGORMELNIKOV, OLEGMISYURYAEV, TIMUR
Owner COHERENT LASERSYST