Described is a system that will provide isolated electric power for a circuit that drives the core reset of a pulsed power modulator. This can be accomplished by coupling light from a number of diode laser bars to bundles of 200 urn multimode optical fibers. This is then coupled to photo-voltaic power converters that will deliver 16 V 29 mA of electricity from 1 watt of optical power. Spot size at the bundle face is a Gausian ellipse with a major axis of 1.4 mm radius and a minor axis of 0.118 mm with a maximum full angle divergence of 16 X 2.4 degrees. Data is presented from four 20 W laser bars coupled to four bundles of 12 fibers generating a total of 24 W of electrical power. Various schemes are used to maximize coupling into the optical fiber while limiting the number of optical components, and comparing components such as fresnel and aspheric lenses and lens ducts for effectiveness and cost. This will provide a completely isolated low power source for high voltage, high current environments where traditional isolation techniques yield inadequate isolation or prove too cumbersome.

Described is a system that can provide electrical power to stacks of switching circuits while maintaining exceptional isolation between high voltage planes. High power laser diode bars are used to illuminate highly efficient photovoltaic cells. This is accomplished using efficient and cost-effective lens ducts and optical fiber segments. Such a system can be very efficient in transmitting optical power to the photocell. Using a glass lens duct we can achieve a theoretical isolation of 200 kV using a unit no bigger than a conventional dc-dc converter with isolation of only 50 kV. The trade off being total electrical efficiency, which is predicted to still be as high as 44%.

We developed a fiber coupled sensor to measure High Voltage (~45kV) directly using only light as the probe. We use the Pockels effect in lithium niobate crystal which will induce a phase shift in a laser beam that varies according to applied voltage. This can then be transformed into a modulation of beam intensity by polarizers, interferometery, or waveguide coupling. No voltage dividers are necessary, nor is any physical connection. This is accomplished by taking advantage of the structure of the power system itself, using voltage planes and dielectric insulation already present as the capacitive voltage divider. We hypothesize a bandwidth from GHz to DC. Such a system could be used in any application that calls for isolated and unobtrusive voltage sensing.