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So krypton is one of the noble gases, it’s not very reactive but it does
react with the element fluorine. Jim Turner, who was my supervisor
when I did my doctorate, was the first person to discover that fluorine
could react with krypton but even that reaction requires quite bright
lights to break the bond between the fluorine atoms to get them to
react. But krypton can also be used in lasers when mixtures of krypton
and of fluorine-containing compound can be used to generate very bright
pulses or intense pulses of ultraviolet light. Some years ago we had a
professor here who bought a really big krypton-fluoride laser and when
he switched it on and the beam hit the wall it burnt a hole right through
the wall so he knew where to make the hole to get his beam into the
next lab.