US Government As Represented by the Secretary of the Army

William A Friday

Gary L Wood

John L Johnson

Ronald W Mitchell

Tulon C McRight, Jr

The all-optical pulse generating and amplifying system utilizes a phosphor that is excited by input light of a first wavelength and, in response, emits light of a second wavelength. The light emitted by the phosphor illuminates a bistable element which, at a pre-fixed intensity of the phosphor-emitted light, switches from non-transmissive state to transmissive state, thereby allowing the exit of light (also of first wavelength) emitted by an output light source as light pulse output of the system. An inhibitory light that also passes through the bistable element during its transmissive state quenches the phosphor light emission and returns the bistable element to its non-transmissive state and re-starts the process toward the next transmissive state. By gating the intensity, via selected non-linearity of the bistable element, of the light output in proportion to the intensity of the input light, the system can also function as an amplifier.

All-optical pulse generating and amplifying system

A synchronization circuit responds to externally supplied trigger input signals to provide a time adjustable output trigger pulse to a laser or other similar device at a desired time to initiate or control operation of the device. The synchronizer circuit provides a precise voltage pulse output in response to a square wave frequency signal input. The square wave input is processed and coupled to a linear comparator for subsequently driving a series connected multivibrator network. The multivibrator network is further controlled by a delay selector circuit for precisely adjusting the output time delay of the multivibrator output pulse. The output from the multivibrator network is coupled into a pulse repetition rate control circuit which is comprised of first and second series connected decade counters which also have selected outputs coupled to an array of NAND gates. Each of the NAND gates are further connected to a trigger rate selector switching circuit for selecting the repetition rate or frequency at which a triggered output from the synchronizer circuit would occur. For a trigger input pulse rate the respective NAND gates divide the pulses per second by known integer values to control the output trigger signal rate from the synchronizer circuit.

Growing community of inventors

Huntsville, AL, United States of America

William A Friday