Abstract

A new intense ultraviolet light source has been developed from an array of hypocycloidal pinch (HCP) devices. The basic unit of the array is constructed with three disk electrodes and is capable of producing dense plasmas at temperatures up to 10,000,000 K. Very high input power levels to the array are possible without significantly shortening its useful life, in strong contrast with conventional xenon flashlamps. The new light source, when operated with Ar and Xe gas mixtures at high pressures (~5 × 10⁴ Pa), produced a light output of over 100 MW in the near-UV spectral range and successfully pumped an iodine photodissociation laser at 1.315 μm. A xenon recombination laser at 2.027 μm was also pumped in the HCP array.

© 1980 Optical Society of America

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M. H. R. Hutchinson
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