Excimer laser pumped by an intense, high-energy heavy-ion beam.

High-energy heavy ions are an ideal tool to generate homogeneously excited, extended volumes of nonthermal plasmas. Here, the high-energy loss (dE/dx) and absolute power deposition of heavy ions interacting with matter has been used to pump an ultraviolet laser. A pulsed 70 MeV/u 238U beam with up to 2.5 x 10(9) particles in approximately 100 ns beam bunches was stopped in a 1.2 m long laser cell filled with a 1.6 bar Ar-Kr-F2 mixture (typically 50%:49.9%:0.1%). Laser effect on the 248 nm KrF* excimer transition is clearly demonstrated.