Investigation of the spatial–temporal dependence of the radiation pattern from an ArF laser

An experimental investigation was made of the evolution of the spatial–temporal dependence of the radiation pattern from a pulse-periodic electric-discharge ArF laser (λ = 193 nm) as the active mixture aged during operation. A Sapfir image converter camera was used to record the vacuum ultraviolet radiation with picosecond resolution. The influence of reducing the concentration of molecular fluorine in the active mixture on an instability leading to the disruption of lasing was analyzed in terms of a model describing the dynamics of the discharge in an ArF laser.