ANALYSIS ON THE STEADY-STATE AMPLIFICATION OF ARF AND KRF DISCHARGE LASERS

The saturation behavior of the steady-state amplification of discharge-pumped ArF and KrF lasers have been analyzed by numerical calculation taking into account absorption, spontaneous decay, and pumping. This analysis predicts the noticeable pulse-width broadening due to amplification in good agreement with experiments. The small-signal-gain g0 and absorption coefficients a were determined simultaneously by the best fits of experimental saturation curves to numerically calculated ones with the results of g 0=3.5%/cm and a=0.2%/cm for the ArF laser and g0=5.0%/cm and a=0.4%/cm for the KrF laser under the investigated conditions.