Saturated 13.2 nm high-repetition-rate laser in nickellike cadmium

We report gain-saturated operation of a 13.2 nm tabletop laser in Ni-like Cd at a 5 Hz repetition rate. A gain-length product G X L = 17.6 was obtained by heating a precreated plasma with 8 ps duration Ti:sapphire laser pulses with an energy of only 1 J impinging at a grazing angle of 23 degrees. With an average power of similar to 1 mW, this laser is an attractive coherent source for at-wavelength metrology of extreme T TV lithography optics and other applications. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.