Continuously tunable xenon laser at 1720 Å

Abstract
We report the first continuously tunable vacuum ultraviolet laser emission in high‐pressure xenon. By incorporating a dispersive element into the optical cavity, laser action was obtained over a 50‐Å (1700‐cm−1) range about a central wavelength of 1720 Å. A highly efficient pumping scheme allows the use of a 0.6‐MeV electron accelerator delivering ≤ 10 J in a 3‐nsec excitation pulse.