Abstract

A versatile electro-optical shutter has been developed for use in optical pumping experiments. The shutter has a cutoff time of 25 nsec, a contrast ratio greater than 2×104 to 1, can be held opened or closed for continuously variable amounts of time, and can effectively shutter light with a large angle of divergence (up to 8°). The shutter consists of a commercially built Kerr cell controlled by a high voltage modulator. The modulator is a specially designed bistable switch which is capable of producing variable width 31 kV pulses and can be cyclically operated up to 250 Hz. The high stability of the shutter together with its other properties makes it particularly useful in optical pumping experiments in which digital signal averaging techniques are used.

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