Krypton excimer emission from discharge excited rare gas clusters

We report the time-resolved observation of krypton second continuum excimer emission near 146 nm from a pulsed-discharge excited gas jet. The excimer emission reaches a peak intensity several millimeters from the nozzle and lasts up to several microseconds after the termination of the discharge. We report the temporal behavior of the excimer emission as a function of gas pressure, discharge energy, and position within the cathode-anode gap. The temporal and spatial characteristics of the excimer emission during the discharge are due to cluster excitation in the jet expansion region and is from a combination of the A 3∑+u and the B 1Σ+u states. A kinetic mechanism involving metastable atoms and clusters is described to explain the observed afterglow emission.