Development of XUV laser applications at LSAI-LULI

Collisional X-UV lasers are now currently produced world-wide. The LSAI team has developed at LULI an efficient, high brightness laser at 21.2 nm, using neonlike zinc. Beside the effort aimed at improvement of efficiency of the neonlike X-UV lasers, the LSAI recent activity has covered scaling the collisional scheme down to shorter wavelengths, as well as development of applications. In this paper we present results of applications of the 21.2 nm laser in atomic physics, solid state physics, and X-UV interferometry of surfaces. The emphasized message is that the characteristics of the existing X-UV lasers render possible applications in many research areas nowadays.