A new approach to the preionization of flash lamps in power lasers

As long as neodymium amplifiers will be used in high-energy lasers, preionization problems will be present in firing the flash lamps. It is difficult to find papers describing technical solutions using preionization concept; only a few internal reports and proceedings from Pulsed Power conferences describe the usage of such circuits in power laser facilities. In all of them, a special negative high voltage power supply is used. A new simple solution, without any additional power supply, using only a small part of the energy gathered in the main capacitor bank for generating a preionization pulse is used. The firing order is split into two signals; the first one is triggering preionization circuit and the second one, after delaying, is triggering the main discharging circuit.