Observation of excimer luminescence from electron-excited liquid xenon

This letter presents an experimental study of vacuum-ultraviolet luminescen ce from low-energy electron-excited liquid xenon. Our experimental results provide strong support for the theory by [E. B. Gordon, V. V. Khmelenko and O. S. Rzhevskii, Chem. Phys. Lett. 217, 605 (1994)] which considers the ra re-gas-atom excitations to be the main reason for the electron drift-veloci ty saturation occurring at high-electric fields in the condensed rare gases . Furthermore, our results prove the existence of hot electrons in liquid x enon and show that electron-excited liquid xenon could serve as the active medium for a novel type of excimer laser as proposed by [E. B. Gordon, O. S . Rzhevsky, and V. V. Khmelenko, Quantum Electron. 24, 227 (1994)]. (C) 200 0 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)02344-5].