Xenon excimer emission from pulsed high-pressure capillary microdischarges

Intense xenon vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) emission is observed from a high-pressure capillary cathode microdischarge in direct current operation, by superimposing a high-voltage pulse of 50 ns duration. Under stagnant gas conditions, the total VUV light intensity increases linearly with pressure from 400 to 1013 mbar for a fixed voltage pulse. At fixed pressure, however, the VUV light intensity increases superlinearly with voltage pulse height ranging from 08 to 2.8 kV. Gains in emission intensity are obtained by inducing gas flow through the capillary cathode, presumably because of excimer dimer survival due to gas cooling. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.