THE GENERATION OF TUNABLE COHERENT VUV RADIATION BY NONRESONANT 4-WAVE SUM-MIXING BELOW THE 1ST RESONANCE LEVEL OF KR AND AR

The generation of tunable coherent VUV radiation by four-wave sum-mixing (FWSM) in the low-energy-side of the first resonance level of nonlinear media was demonstrated for the first time to the authors' knowledge. The small dimension of the Kr and Ar jet provided by a piezoelectric valve eliminated the negative dispersion requirement of the FWSM process to nonlinear media thus the FWSM process in the positive region was observed comparable efficient with that in the negative region. Multi-coherence-length interferences were also observed in the experiment.OpticsSCI(E)EI6ARTICLE1-4204-20610