SLYT876 April   2026 LMH13000

 

  1.   1
  2. 1 Introduction
  3. 2 What makes laser pulse control challenging?
  4. 3 Effects of rise and fall times
  5. 4 Propagation delay
  6. 5 Pulse-to-pulse stability
  7. 6 Implementing precise laser pulse control
  8. 7 Precise pulse control in pulsed systems
  9. 8 Practical example with transmitter test results
  10. 9 Conclusion
  11. 10Additional resources
  12. 11About the authors

2 What makes laser pulse control challenging?

Laser drivers do more than deliver current. They directly influence the timing information that lidar and ToF systems use to calculate distance. Consider a simple timing variation budget comprising of several sources, where for the purposes of this article there are three contributors:

  • Rise and fall time (tr/f): how quickly the pulse moves through the detection threshold.
  • Propagation delay (tpd): how long it takes from the trigger to actual light emission.
  • Pulse-to-pulse variation (tpp): how much the timing or amplitude drifts from pulse to pulse.