A novel trigger system for flashlamp pumped solid state laser power supply

摘要

Flash lamp pumped solid state lasers require a high voltage trigger pulse to create an ionized spark streamer between the electrodes of the lamp so that simmer current or main pulsed discharge current starts flowing through it. Most common methods for triggering flash lamps are external trigger, series trigger, over-voltage, simmer and pseudo-simmer techniques/li. A method of parallel trigger also exists theoretically/2/ but is normally not used in practical systems because of difficulties in realising it. In this work, a novel trigger system is developed and characterised, which utilises parallel trigger technique along with simmer current mode of operation to incorporate the advantages of external, series trigger and simmer current techniques.