Switching Characteristics of Large-Aperture Electro-Optical Switches With Plasma Electrodes Part II—Comparison With Experiment

The large-aperture optical switches with plasma-electrode Pockels cell (PEPC) are important elements for the multipass laser amplifiers in the inertial-confinement fusion. In this paper, an optical switch of the PEPC driven by one-pulse process (OPP) is simulated by using a fluid model developed in a previous paper. We computationally study the physical processes of the discharge evolvements and discharge fading away in the large-aperture PEPC switches driven by the OPP. Charging on the surfaces of potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystal in the discharge determines the switching characteristics of the PEPC. The simulation results nearly coincide with the experimental measurement.