Saturated 13.2 nm high-repetition-rate laser in nickellike cadmium

We report gain-saturated operation of a 13.2 nm tabletop laser in Ni-like Cd at a 5 Hz repetition rate. A gain–length product G × L=17.6 was obtained by heating a precreated plasma with 8 ps duration Ti:sapphire laser pulses with an energy of only 1 J impinging at a grazing angle of 23°. With an average power of ~1 γW, this laser is an attractive coherent source for at-wavelength metrology of extreme UV lithography optics and other applications.