Nanosecond switching, high-contrast Pockels cell with plasma electrodes

Author

Pronko, M.S. ; Deniz, A.V. ; Yun, V. ; Goldhar, J.

Author_Institution

Div. of Plasma Phys., Naval Res. Lab., Washington, DC, USA

fYear

1996

fDate

2-7 June 1996

Firstpage

435

Lastpage

436

Abstract

Summary form only given. High-contrast pulse shaping with divergent light requires a switching element that has large angular acceptance. We used a Pockels cell with a thin crystal and plasma electrodes to demonstrate less than 0.5-ns risetime and >3000:1 contrast for 248-nm light with 6 rad divergence. Symmetric compression of laser fusion pellets requires laser light that uniformly illuminates the pellet with a well controlled temporal pulse shape.

Keywords

Pockels effect; electro-optical switches; electrodes; high-speed optical techniques; optical pulse compression; plasma production by laser; 0.5 ns; 248 nm; divergent light; high-contrast Pockels cell; high-contrast pulse shaping; large angular acceptance; laser fusion pellets; laser light; nanosecond switching; nm light; ns risetime; plasma electrodes; switching element; symmetric compression; thin crystal; uniformly illuminates; well controlled temporal pulse shape; Electrodes; Foot; Harmonic distortion; Image converters; Laser noise; Optical pulses; Plasmas; Pulse modulation; Shape control; Speckle;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1996. CLEO '96., Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on

Conference_Location

Anaheim, CA, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-443-2

Type

conf

Filename

864889