Generation of coherent VUV and XUV radiation

Three different experimental approaches for the generation of coherent VUV and XUV radiation are studied and discussed. With a 400 fs KrF excimer laser system tunable VUV radiation around 155 nm with a peak power of approximately 0.5 GW has been generated by near-resonant four-wave difference-frequency mixing in xenon. A 150 fs, 0.7 TW Ti:Sapphire laser system has been used for investigations on high-order frequency mixing with linear and circular polarized laser fields. With the same system soft x-ray lasing in low charged oxygen ions has been demonstrated.