Quasi-optical cavity dumping at millimetre wave frequencies

Author

Smith, G.M. ; Lesurf, J.C.G. ; Cui, Y. ; Dunn, M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys. & Astronomy, St. Andrews Univ., Fife, UK

fYear

1993

Firstpage

155

Abstract

A thin silicon wafer illuminated by a Q-switched frequency-doubled Nd-YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) laser is used as a very fast, ultra-low-loss, quasi-optical, photoconductive switch to cavity-dump a millimeter-wave open resonator. This novel scheme should provide short pulses at millimeter-wave frequencies with power gains of several hundred from conventional continuous-wave (CW) sources. The switch has extremely low insertion loss and can switch on timescales of a few nanoseconds. Potential applications are in high-resolution radar, plasma diagnostics, and pulsed electron spin resonance experiments.<>

Keywords

cavity resonators; circulators (microwave); laser beam applications; photoconducting devices; Nd-YAG Q-switched laser; Si; insertion loss; millimeter-wave open resonator; millimetre wave frequencies; photoconductive switch; plasma diagnostics; power gains; pulsed electron spin resonance; quasi-optical cavity dumping; radar; Aluminum; Frequency; Garnets; Insertion loss; Millimeter wave radar; Photoconductivity; Radar applications; Silicon; Switches; Yttrium;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 1993., IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Atlanta, GA, USA

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-1209-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.1993.276921

Filename

276921