Compact high power subnanosecond nitrogen and “open air” lasers at 760 torr

Simulation and Analytical Analysis of the Blumlein Discharge Circuit for the Generation of Coherent UV Pulses in Air

“…Blumlein discharge technique is extensively being used to produce an electrical discharge in the laser cavity, which leads to lasing and is used widely because of low cost and easy construction. Blumlein circuit is a pulse forming a network which provides the needed electrical discharge in the cavity which is often formed by the series of parallel capacitors or Aluminium-based two parallel plate capacitors [6,7] The basic schematic of the Blumlein circuit is shown in Fig 1 (a). The Blumlein system consists of two sections, and the first section is the spark gap which is used for the ignition of the whole system.…”

“…As a result, an electric discharge occurred across the Blumlein transmission line. The electric discharge excited the air molecules (mostly N2) and during de-excitation results, coherent UV pulses [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The behaviour of the voltage variation across the transmission line will be explained in section 2.…”

“…The electrical power across the Blumlein transmission line reaches to 6 MW and exhibits the oscillatory behaviour. During this rapid oscillation of electric power in the Blumlein transmission line, the successive pulses of coherent UV are generated and famously known as TEA N2 laser [5][6][7][8].…”

“…In Blumlein, the discharge in the laser tube reaches to the peak value of V0(Applied voltage) whereas in C-to-C the voltage is reached to only H. Golnabi and A. Ashrafi in 1994 also studied the electrical properties of nitrogen laser constructed using Blumlein and C-to-C discharge circuits and concluded that Blumlein is more efficient [3]. Blumlein discharge circuit is employed to generate nitrogen laser at 0 to 5 bar pressure [4], and transversally electrical excitation at atmospheric (TEA) pressure nitrogen laser was reported [5,6,7,8]. Adolf J. Schwab in 1976 [9] presented the design of nitrogen laser using Blumlein discharge with the efficiency of 0.2-0.4% which is far better than that produced from C-to-C discharge system by K.A.…”

Gain, fluorescence and energy extraction characteristics of photostabilised atmospheric pressure UV nitrogen lasers

“…There is considerable interest in the development of atmospheric-pressure uv nitrogen lasers operating on the (0, 0) 337 nm transition of the second positive (C3111,-B31Tg) band system of molecular nitrogen (Salzmann and Strohwald 1974, Hasson et al 1974, Herden 1975). The lasers provide pulses of 5 1 ns duration and have applications to a diverse range of scientific problems.…”