Re: modulation, bit rate, lasers and diodes sources

My favorite one-pass laser is the nitrogen-gas laser described as a home project in Scientific American's "The Amateur Scientist" monthly column. The version described produced "a piece of light the size and shape of a broomstick." Actually, two pieces, one out of each end. My modified design reduced the back radiation to insignificance.

Jerry

On Jan 24, 3:15&#4294967295;pm, Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote:
> My favorite one-pass laser is the nitrogen-gas laser described as a home project in Scientific American's "The Amateur Scientist" monthly column. The version described produced "a piece of light the size and shape of a broomstick." Actually, two pieces, one out of each end. My modified design reduced the back radiation to insignificance.
>
> Jerry

That was a great article! I recall it made a gigawatt pulse with a
nanosecond duration. The authors were measuring distances to clouds
during the daytime by measuring the round trip times for pulses to the
clouds and back.

I thought the cleverest part of the design was their way to quickly
switch on the voltage across the nitrogen column by using a spark gap
to quickly bleed off half of the charge!

Cool that you built one. Did you use it to measure distances?

Clay