Operation of a Microwave Pulse Compressor With a Laser-Triggered Plasma Switch at Different Laser Beam Directions

Abstract

A resonant microwave pulse compressor with laser triggering of the plasma discharge in its switch was studied for the influence of the unfocused laser beam direction with respect to the RF electric field. The compressor was realized as a rectangular waveguide-based cavity connected to an $H$ -plane waveguide tee with a shorted side arm filled with pressurized helium and pumped by a conventional pulsed $S$ -band magnetron. It was found that neither the direction, nor the intensity of the laser beam significantly affect the compressor output pulse peak power and waveform. Meantime, the delay between the moment of plasma discharge initiation and the appearance of the microwave output is shorter and the time jitter for this delay is smaller if the laser beam is directed along the RF electric field. The same effect was observed when increasing the intensity of the laser beam. Time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy was used to evaluate the plasma density, and numerical simulations of the RF energy release from the system with the appearance of plasma showed a good agreement with the experimentally obtained characteristics of the plasma and microwave output pulse.