Low cost Pockels cell driver for pulsed solid state lasers

The paper describes a low cost Pockels cell driver for Q-switching flash lamp pumped pulsed solid state lasers. The driver consists of a high voltage pulsed power supply variable from 0 to 5 kV using a standard step up transformer. The pulse width and pulse repetition rate are varied using standard TTL circuits from 50 μs to 2 ms and 1 ppm to 50 Hz, respectively. The pulsed high voltage along with a high voltage switch consisting of a stack of bipolar transistors is used to drive a Pockels cell. The Q-switched pulsed duration measured in Ruby and Nd-YAG lasers are 35 and 15 ns, respectively. The Pockels cell driver performance is consistent for more than 5×10⁷ shots.