DUV/VUV All-Solid-State Lasers: Twenty Years of Progress and the Future

We briefly review the main methods for generating deep ultraviolet (DUV) or vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light sources, and describe in detail our progress in the design and development of precise and practical DUV all-solid-state lasers based on second harmonic generation. Their incorporation into various kinds of advanced analytic instruments is also discussed. Already, many significant results have been obtained and new phenomena discovered with these state-of-the-art tools. In the last part, we look at possible future developments in the field of DUV/VUV all-solid-state lasers and their potential applications in an even broader range of research fields.