Patent ID: 6914920

Claim:
A method for the energy stabilization of a gas discharge-pumped radiation source that is operated in defined pulse sequences (bursts), in which a high voltage is regulated as charging voltage for triggering the gas discharge-pumped energy radiation through a proportional regulation depending on the measured pulse energy, comprising the steps of: calculating the pulse energy E n (p) to be adjusted for a current pulse in the current burst from the pulse energies of a preceding pulse E n-1 (p) in the current burst and of an identical pulse E n (p-1) of a preceding precursor burst; using at least one unregulated model burst which found the same excitation conditions as the current burst as a precursor burst; setting a suitable starting value as the precursor energy value of the first pulse in the current burst; and calculating the high voltage to be adjusted for the current pulse from the currently calculated pulse energy E n (p) by dividing by the rise dE/dU of the function of the pulse energy depending on the high voltage in the linear operating range of the radiation source.