Numerical simulation of the active medium and investigation of the pump source for the development of a photochemical XeF(C-A) amplifier of femtosecond optical pulses

Numerical simulations of the active medium of an XeF(C-A) amplifier were us ed to determine the conditions for its spatially uniform excitation. It is shown that in the transient regime of the bleaching wave formation, the exc itation efficiency increases with increasing steepness of the pump pulse le ading edge. An optical source for pumping an XeF(C-A) amplifier was develop ed and investigated. The source is based on a radically new approach to the production of a large-area surface discharge (of the order of 100 cm(2) an d over) without using switches in the feed circuit connected in series with the discharge. Radiation pulses of the shortest duration (0.6 - 0.7 mus) f or this kind of sources were obtained. There are grounds to believe that ap plying this source in a 50-cm long multipass amplifier will provide an over all gain of similar to 10(3).