The powerful sources of UV radiation on a base of discharge excimer lasers find wide application in scientific research and technology. Short wavelengths, high peak and mean powers, and the possibility of quick working mixture exchange are making this type of laser extremely attractive for photochemistry, lithography, and laser medicine. Nevertheless, it is known that without taking special measures, excimer lasers possess bad spectral and spatial coherence. Further progress in the growing field of excimer laser application is impossible without flexible control of radiation parameters: linewidth, divergence, and laser pulse duration. The authors investigate different approaches to producing radiation with high spectral and spatial brightness as well as with variable pulse duration from commercial excimer lasers. The experiments were carried out on a commercial excimer laser Model 1701 developed in the Physics Instrumentation Center of the General Physics Institute. The laser discharge volume was 1 X 2 X 60 cm3, the output energy is 200 mJ at 248 nm and 100 mJ at 308 nm. Maximal repetition rate is 50 Hz.
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