Excitation of copper vapor lasers by direct discharge of storage capacitor via the high-speed photothyristors

Abstract

The possibility of using an optocoupler "pulsed fiber laser - photo thyristor" as a switch in excitation circuits of copper vapor lasers (CVL) is investigated. It is shown that such switch has a nanosecond speed, is able to pass monopolar or alternating current pulses through CVL with a power of up to 10 MW and a repetition rate of up to tens of kilohertz with an electric efficiency of excitation circuit of more than 95%. A simple but very accurate model of photo thyristor is proposed, which can be used in full-scale CVL modeling programs.