Improvement of the first kilowatt XeCl laser for different specific applications

The first 1 kW laser was achieved by SOPRA in August 1992 with high energy per shot (i.e., 10 J X 100 Hz and 13 J X 80 Hz) in short burst mode (typically 1 sec to 10 sec). After this result the SOPRA team focused its work in two directions: (1) Longer burst (typically 1.5 hour) in order to attend thermal equilibrium of the set-up for lower pulse repetition frequency (PRF); and (2) specific applications beam adapting. However most of the customers' applications at the present time require high energy per pulse at low PRF but keep in mind that the laser will be able to work at higher frequency in the near future. So work has been done on the beam shape quality: it is reproductive. It can be either homogeneous in the near field or, with low divergence for far field. Application surface is much larger than with conventional excimer laser or creates an affect not possible with conventional excimer laser.