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From: will@anasazi.UUCP (Will Fuller)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: what is a crytron?
Message-ID: <196@anasazi.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-May-85 10:31:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: anasazi.196
Posted: Wed May 22 10:31:44 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 08:21:02 EDT
References: <301@sdcc12.UUCP>
Organization: Anasazi, Phoenix Az.
Lines: 16

> Crytrons have been in the news lately.  It was asserted that they are 
> indispensable for a nuclear bomb, and that Isreal has acquired many crytrons,
> contrary to the wishes of the U.S.A., and that they are only manufactured
> by Edgerton, Germeshousen, and Grier in this country.
> So, someone please explain the details of a crytron.
> 

If it is the same sort of crytron I'm thinking of, its an ultra fast
vacuum tube style high voltage switch. They put a minute amount of
radioactive gas in the thing so that the ionization time of the gas
inside the tube is shortened. Crytrons are used to turn on pockel cells
for Q-switching solid state lasers to increase the peak energy output
by cavity dumping.
-- 
William H. Fuller
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