Magnetic pulse compressor for prepulse discharge in spiker-sustainer excitation technique for XeCl lasers

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Abstract
A high‐voltage pulse output modulator using a step‐up transformer with two stages of magnetic pulse compression circuits has been developed as a spiker for the purpose of obtaining the breakdown of the gas mixture when using the spiker‐sustainer excitation technique for pumping XeCl discharge lasers. When the transformer input is fed by a current pulse with a peak value and a full width of 1.16 kA and 1.6 μs, respectively, formed by a discharge of an initially charged 19‐kV, 57‐nF capacitance in series in the transformer primary loop, the 2.7‐nF output capacitor bank (C p ) of the spiker can be charged up to 67 kV with a (10%–90%) rise time of 59 ns. The modulator has been tested at a repetition rate of up to 600 Hz in burst mode using a resistor in parallel with C p as the load.