Design and Construction of Simmer Circuit in Order to Drive Flash Lamp in Solid State Laser

In solid state lasers, the light pumping of the laser rod is done by a flash lamp. In order to drive the flash lamp, an electrical power supply consisting of four main parts is used, including the capacitor charging power supply, the trigger circuit, the pulse forming network and the simmer circuit. Using the high voltage output of the trigger circuit, the xenon gas inside the flash lamp is ionized. After the trigger action, the main task of the simmer circuit is to generate a low current in order to maintain the ionized state of the flash lamp. Using the simmer mode increases the life of the flash lamp and also significantly reduces electrical and electromagnetic interference. In this article, a new simmer circuit is proposed for driving flash lamp in solid state laser. The presented circuit has been completely designed and then simulated in the PSPICE software environment. After confirming the correctness of its operation, the proposed circuit has been implemented in a laboratory. Circuit simulation results and laboratory results are presented and reported in this article.