Ultraviolet lamp for the generation of intense, constant-shape pulses in the subnanosecond region

Abstract

A commonly available mercury contact relay is modified to make a uv lamp which yields a spark with approximately 100 times the intensity of the original relay and with constant characteristic risetime of 0.4 nsec, decay time of 0.55 nsec, and half‐width of 0.5 nsec. The lamp can be used not only for fluorescence decay‐time studies, but also for electrical applications in the subnanosecond region. It has been operated in the range 3 to 50 000 pulses per second.