The Razor Edge Of The Excimer Laser

F2 ArF KrF XeF KrCI XeCI (nm) 157 193 249 351 353 222 308 Pulse (mJ) 40 500 1000 500 100 500 EE 36 February 1987 THE RAZOR EDGE OF THE EXCIMER LASER by Dr Malcolm C. Gower, Laser Division, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton near Oxford Excimer lasers produce extremely intense bursts of ultraviolet light. Their ability to do so is generating a great deal of interest in areas as diverse as chemical synthesis, defence, surgery, and semiconductor processing and chip manufacturing. The short- wavelength photons they produce have enough energy to break most of the chemical bonds that bind molecules together, thereby fragmenting or stimulating them to change their form. This ability to control the chemical state of matter and change it in a desirable and very selective way is at the heart of many of the most exciting applications of excimer lasers. The most common type of excimer laser uses molecularly diatomic rare-gas halides such as ArF, KrF, XeF or XeC1 as the active species fro...