A novel method of measuring the delay between pre-ionizing and main discharges in TE gas lasers

Describes a simple, reliable method for the measurement of the very short delay (tens of nanseconds) between the pre-ionizing and main discharge currents in a TEA CO(sub2) laser operated in the spiker sustainer configuration. In this method, light emitted from the pre-ionizing spark and the main discharge is first collected separately using optical fibres and then the delay between the onsets of their emission is measured with the help of simple optoelectronic circuits. The method is noise-free since it does not involve measurement of large pulse currents. It can be useful for the measurement of similar delays in the operation of other TE gas lasers. (Original abstract)