Semiconductor Excitation Power Supply for the Metal Halide Vapor Laser

The paper presents the results of the semiconductor excitation source development and approbation. Excitation source was based on the LTD-generator topology which provides high current and voltage slew rate on the load. The main feature of this topology is cell structure. The modern MOSFET (CoolMOS) were used as key elements. The source consisted of 10 cells which were connected in series to increase maximum available current and current slew rate. The excitation source provided excitation of metal halide vapor laser with pulse repetition frequency of 150 and 200 kHz. The voltage and current slew rate which affect to the excitation efficiency were equal to 110 V/ns and 1.2 A/ns respectively. These results are comparable with those obtained for vacuum or gas-filled devices (tacitron, modulating lamp). The capacitor energy was 3.6 mJ and the energy input to the discharge was 2.83 mJ. In this case efficiency of energy transformation was equal to about 79%.