Ozone: an effective and scalable saturable absorber for KrF lasers

We report the first documentation of an effective scalable saturable absorber for KrF lasers. Our measurements show that a 4-cm path length of ozone (O3) at a partial pressure of 0.4 Torr will attenuate energy densities under 50 mJ/cm2 by a factor of ~50 while allowing transmission of 90% of fluences above 1 J/cm2.