History of the telescope of the IRAS satellite in 1983 revolutionized infrared astronomy from space. This reflecting telescope which had a mirror, operated for nine months until its supply of coolant (liquid helium) ran out. It surveyed the entire sky detecting 245,000 infrared sources—more than 100 times the number previously known. Although optical telescopes can image the near ultraviolet, the ozone layer in the stratosphere absorbs ultraviolet radiation shorter than 300 nm so most ultra-violet astronomy is conducted with satellites. Ultraviolet telescopes resemble optical telescopes, but conventional aluminium-coated mirrors cannot be used and alternative coatings such as magnesium fluoride or lithium fluoride are used
Ultraviolet krypton provides resonantly enhanced tunable VUV covering from 100 nm to 200 nm. Practically, the lack of suitable gas/vapor cell window materials above the lithium fluoride cut-off wavelength limit the tuning range to longer than about 110 nm. Tunable VUV wavelengths down to 75 nm was achieved using window-free configurations. Lasers have been used to indirectly generate non-coherent extreme UV (EUV) radiation at 13.5 nm for extreme ultraviolet lithography. The EUV is not emitted by the laser, but rather by electron transitions in an extremely hot tin or xenon plasma, which is excited by an excimer laser. This technique does