page_title: Flashtube
section_title: Series triggering
hierarchical_section_title: Flashtube / Operation / Series triggering
caption_attribution_description: Русский: На этой фотографии показана головка рубинового лазера. На левом снимке головка разобрана, лампы-вспышки слева и справа от рубинового стержня. Размеры стержня 150 мм на 10 мм такие же, как длина и диаметр дуги лампы-вспышки. На Снимке справа показана собранная головка без зеркал.
context_page_description: A flashtube, also called a flashlamp, is an electric arc lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for very short durations. Flashtubes are made of a length of glass tubing with electrodes at either end and are filled with a gas that, when triggered, ionizes and conducts a high voltage pulse to produce the light. Flashtubes are used mostly for photographic purposes but are also employed in scientific, medical, industrial, and entertainment applications.
context_section_description: Series triggering is more common in high powered, water-cooled flashtubes, such as those found in lasers. The high-voltage leads of the trigger-transformer are connected to the flashtube in series, (one lead to an electrode and the other to the capacitor), so that the flash travels through both the transformer and the lamp. The trigger pulse forms a spark inside the lamp, without exposing the trigger voltage to the outside of the lamp. The advantages are better insulation, more reliable triggering, and an arc that tends to develop well away from the glass, but at a much higher cost. The series-triggering transformer also acts as an inductor. This helps to control the flash duration, but prevents the circuit from being used in very fast discharge applications. The triggering can generally take place with a lower voltage at the capacitor than is required for external triggering. However, the trigger-transformer becomes part of the flash circuit, and couples the triggering-circuit to the flash energy. Therefore, because the trigger-transformer has very low impedance, the transformer, triggering-circuit, and silicon controlled rectifier (SCR) must be able to handle very high peak-currents, often in excess of 1500 amps.
caption: A ruby laser head, assembled and disassembled, revealing pumping cavity, the ruby rod, and two water-cooled flashtubes.
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