A sweep rate accommodation circuit for streak camera is proposed to address the problem that streak cameras with a fixed sweep rate can not be used to diagnose ultrafast transient physical experiments in different time scale. The sweep circuit consists of a high voltage pulse generator and a speed regulator. The step voltage pulse from the pulse generator is converted into an underdamped oscillation voltage through a two-order RLC circuit with a series topology
and the part in the front-edge of the oscillation signal
which has the best linearity
is used as the sweep voltage. The slope of the front-edge of the oscillation signal is adjusted through adjusting the frequency of the oscillation
as a result
the sweep rate of the streak camera can be regulated. Several RLC circuits are used to realize multiple sweep speed gears
and electromagnetic relay switches are used to switch between gears. Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that several RLC circuits in combination with electromagnetic switches can make the sweep rate of the streak camera adjustable with multiple gears
so that a streak camera can be used not only to perform the diagnosis of a physical phenomenon lasting for only hundreds of picoseconds
but also to record an optical phenomenon with a duration of tens of nanoseconds.
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