Pulse duration

About: Pulse duration is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 19429 publications have been published within this topic receiving 286507 citations.

Temporal development and chemical efficiency of positive streamers in a large scale wire-plate reactor as a function of voltage waveform parameters

Abstract: In this paper a large-scale pulsed corona system is described in which pulse parameters such as pulse rise-time, peak voltage, pulse width and energy per pulse can be varied. The chemical efficiency of the system is determined by measuring ozone production. The temporal and spatial development of the discharge streamers is recorded using an ICCD camera with a shortest exposure time of 5 ns. The camera can be triggered at any moment starting from the time the voltage pulse arrives on the reactor, with an accuracy of less than 1 ns. Measurements were performed on an industrial size wire-plate reactor. The influence of pulse parameters like pulse voltage, DC bias voltage, rise-time and pulse repetition rate on plasma generation was monitored. It was observed that for higher peak voltages, an increase could be seen in the primary streamer velocity, the growth of the primary streamer diameter, the light intensity and the number of streamers per unit length of corona wire. No significant separate influence of DC bias voltage level was observed as long as the total reactor voltage (pulse + DC bias) remained constant and the DC bias voltage remained below the DC corona onset. For those situations in which the plasma appearance changed (e.g. different streamer velocity, diameter, intensity), a change in ozone production was also observed. The best chemical yields were obtained for low voltage (55 kV), low energetic pulses (0.4 J/pulse): 60 g (kWh)−1. For high voltage (86 kV), high energetic pulses (2.3 J/pulse) the yield decreased to approximately 45 g (kWh)−1, still a high value for ozone production in ambient air (RH 42%). The pulse repetition rate has no influence on plasma generation and on chemical efficiency up to 400 pulses per second.

An improved model for nanosecond pulsed laser ablation of metals

Abstract: A model is presented for the ablation of metals by nanosecond laser pulses, based on one-dimensional heat flow with temperature dependent material properties. A numerical optical calculation is introduced to account for laser beam absorption in the target, utilizing established matrix methods for electromagnetic plane wave propagation in multi-layered media. By including the effects of reflection from the dielectric-metal interface, the fall in reflectivity of aluminum during nanosecond laser pulses above the phase explosion threshold is found to be approximately twice that calculated in previous works. A simulated shielding coefficient is introduced to account for reflection and absorption of the incident laser beam by the ablation products. With these additions to foregoing models, good agreement between calculated and published experimental ablation data is attained for aluminum, both in terms of ablation threshold and depth. An investigation is subsequently carried out into the effects of laser wavelength, pulse duration and target thickness on the phase explosion threshold of aluminum.

Pulsed microwave discharge at atmospheric pressure for NOx decomposition

Abstract: A 3.0 GHz pulsed microwave source operated at atmospheric pressure with a pulse power of 1.4 MW, a maximum repetition rate of 40 Hz, and a pulse length of 3.5 µs is experimentally studied with respect to the ability to remove NOx from synthetic exhaust gases. Experiments in gas mixtures containing N2/O2/NO with typically 500 ppm NO are carried out. The discharge is embedded in a high-Q microwave resonator, which provides a reliable plasma ignition. Vortex flow is applied to the exhaust gas to improve gas treatment. Concentration measurements by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirm an NOx reduction of more than 90% in the case of N2/NO mixtures. The admixture of oxygen lowers the reductive potential of the reactor, but NOx reduction can still be observed up to 9% O2 concentration. Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering technique is applied to measure the vibrational and rotational temperature of N2. Gas temperatures of about 400 K are found, whilst the vibrational temperature is 3000-3500 K in pure N2. The vibrational temperature drops to 1500 K when O2 and/or NO are present. The randomly distributed relative frequency of occurrence of selected breakdown field intensities is measured by a calibrated, short linear-antenna. The breakdown field strength in pure N2 amounts to 2.2×106 V m-1, a value that is reproducible within 2%. In the case of O2 and/or NO admixture, the frequency distribution of the breakdown field strength scatters more and extends over a range from 3 to 8×106 V m-1.

The coherent artifact in modern pulse measurements

Abstract: We simulate multi-shot intensity-and-phase measurements of unstable ultrashort-pulse trains using frequency-resolved-optical-gating (FROG) and spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER). Both techniques fail to reveal the pulse structure. FROG yields the average pulse duration and suggests the instability by exhibiting disagreement between measured and retrieved traces. SPIDER under-estimates the average pulse duration but retrieves the correct average pulse spectral phase. An analytical calculation confirms this behavior.

Adaptive control of pulse phase in a chirped-pulse amplifier.

Abstract: Using experimental feedback, we demonstrate that a chirped-pulse amplifier can adaptively learn to compensate for the higher-order phase dispersion that is inherent in the amplification process. A genetic algorithm-based search routine is used to repetitively update the pulse phase in a programmable pulse stretcher during a plasma breakdown experiment to maximize the magnitude of spectral blueshift. Reductions in pulse duration from 37 to 30 fs and substantially better wing structure are typically obtained as a result of the optimization.