Jitter-free signal-averaging picosecond X-ray streak camera

Summary form only given. Commercially available X-ray streak cameras have a temporal resolution of the order of a few picoseconds, but have an internal jitter more than a few tens of picoseconds. On the other hand, it has been shown that with the use of a high-voltage photoconductive switch, which provides the sweep voltage for an optical streak camera-a jitter of /spl plusmn/2 ps is achievable. In this paper we report on the use of a DC-biased semi-insulating (SI) GaAs photoconductive switch as a generator of a high-voltage ramp with a sweep speed of up to 8 ps/mm; shot-to-shot jitter is less /spl plusmn/1 ps for the X-ray streak camera.