Patent ID: 7274281

Claim:
A discharge lamp lighting apparatus for supplying high frequency-high voltage to an excimer discharge lamp comprising: a boasting transformer having a core, a secondary side coil and a pair of primary side coils; a DC power source; and switching elements, wherein one end of each of the primary side coils is connected to one of output modes of the DC power source, the other end of each of the primary side coils is connected to one end of each of the switching elements, the other end of each of the switching elements is connected to the other output node of the DC power source, the switching elements are controlled so as to alternately become an electrically conductive state, thereby serving as a push-pull inverter, the excimer discharge is connected to ends of the secondary side coil, a duty ratio of an electrically conductive period to an operational cycle of each of the switching elements is 30% or less, a turn ratio of the secondary side coil to each of the primary side coils is 25 or less, a difference between a first length of a first axial direction area where each of the primary side coils are wound, and a second length of a second axial direction area where the secondary side coil is wound, is 18% or less of the first length or the second length, a leakage inductance associated with magnetic coupling between the primary side coils and the secondary coil is 0.2% to 0.7% of a primary side coil inductance, and the primary side coils and the secondary side coil are placed apart from each other.