Abstract
We present the results of a proof-of-principle experiment to demonstrate the generation of tunable radiation from a laser-ionized gas-filled capacitor array. This scheme directly converts a static electric field of wave number into coherent radiation pulses of frequency , where is the plasma frequency. The radiation frequency can be tuned by varying gas pressure and/or capacitor spacing. In this experiment, well-polarized, short (less than 5 ns) microwave pulses have been generated over a frequency range of 6 to 21 GHz. The frequency of the detected signal, as measured with cut-off waveguides, scales linearly with the plasma density, and the relative power of the signal scales quadratically with the dc bias voltage in agreement with the theory.
- Received 21 June 1996
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.4764
©1996 American Physical Society