The setup under development is intended to serve as the Russian National Primary Special Standard for Laser Pulse Duration in the range from 10 to 1000 ps. The core components of the standard are a streak camera with picosecond temporal resolution and a Fabry-Pérot etalon illuminated by femtosecond laser pulses. The etalon defines a time interval which is used to calibrate the temporal scale of the streak camera. The standard includes a picosecond laser pulse generator for reproduction and transfer of the unit of laser pulse duration to another measuring instrument or secondary standard. Described are the principles of operation, the construction of the standard, and the results of preliminary experiments to determine its metrological properties.

Regularites of weed plants specific structure formation depending on weather conditions, fertilizers applications and herbicides are reflected at the article.

The paper presents results of high-speed optical studies carried out at the high voltage research center (HVRC), Istra, Russia (2002 - 2007). Different measurements were conducted in rod-to-plane gap of 5.56 m in length under both polarities HV pulses of around 2 MV in altitude with waveform of 20/7500 and 100/7500 s. The velocities of the long spark in stages of final jump and return stroke were directly measured using framing and streak modes. The highest velocities near the grounded plane or near the junction point have been found to be around 5 -10 m/ mus that is much larger than usually reported. These results have been confirmed and ascertained with additional quantitative treatment of the streak photographs. The velocities have been compared with those in the natural lightning and in the short gap streamer discharges; simple explanations suggested.

The results of investigation of two plasma clouds interaction appearing at the laser irradiation of two different targets in background gas atmosphere on the MKV-4 facility of the "Iskra-5" has been described. The experimental data are compared with the results of the theoretical simulation.

Results of experimental investigations of optical characteristics of discharges from an artificial cloud of charged water aerosol by using the K011miniature 9-frame image converter camera are presented in the paper. Application of high speed image converter camera has allowed clearly distinguished the peculiarities of a final stage of three types of discharges from the charged aerosol clouds. Each type of final stage is differed not only on optical and current characteristics, but the sequence of formation. It was found that the type of final stage depends on character of development the previous leader discharges in the gap "charged aerosol cloud-grounded rod on the plate". The most frequently case is the formation of final stage after development of upward leader from the grounded rod and of counterpart negative downward leader from the charged aerosol cloud boundaries. Simultaneously registered current characteristics have shown significant correlation between optical and current characteristics of final stage of discharge. More powerful discharge luminosity the higher current amplitude and the shorter final stage of discharge.

There has been presented a brief description of test equipment and instrumentation for recording spatial-time parameters of a lightning at the International Center for Lightning Research & Testing (ICLRT) in Camp Blanding that belongs to the University of Florida as well as the first results of Russian image converter cameras test when recording a trigger lightning.

Description of a new K010X soft X-ray camera and the first results of it tests carried out in Russia and China are presented. In a streak mode the full sweep time for a 2 cm sweep route length on the image converter screen is from 2 ns up to 600 microseconds. In a single-frame mode the corresponding frame duration is from ~10 ns up to ~ 660 microseconds. Spatial resolution in a single frame mode was not less than 5 l.p./mm for soft X-ray radiation and not less 10 l.p./mm for UV radiation. Spatial resolution in a streak mode for soft X-ray radiation was from 5 up to 10 l.p./mm and for UV radiation on all the sweep ranges was not less than 10 l.p./mm, except for the range of 1 ns/cm where it was 5 l.p./mm. Limiting temporal resolution for UV radiation was near 10 ps and a dynamic range was 200 when full sweep time was 60 ns. The camera has small 430×115×200 mm dimensions, 5.0 kg weight and 10 VA power consumption.

The results of K004M camera tests when recording a trigger lightning are presented in paper [1] at this Congress. This report is a continuation of paper [1] and gives the results of demonstration of the camera functioning when recording a short spark in laboratory of the University of Florida (Gainesville, USA) and then a natural lightning in the University and at the International Center for Lightning Research & Testing (ICLRT) in Camp Blanding that belongs to this University. In so doing it has been shown that, except for luck, important conditions of successful record of a natural lightning are exact synchronization of the moment of camera start with a required discharge stage as well as automatic measurement of a distance to lightning and determination of its polarity.

A copper vacuum arc cathode spot at current 10-100 A was imaged by three-frame camera K 001(1) (BIFO Company, Russia) with frame exposures 30 ns and 6 ns and spatial resolution up to 7 mu m. It was found that spot splitting into separate fragments occurs at currents higher than 50 A. The average fragment size was found to be 20 pin at current about 10 A (cathode spot consists of a single fragment). With the rise of the arc current the average fragment size rises too and reaches 50 pin at current 100 A (cathode spot consists of two or three fragments). The overall dimension of region occupied by cathode spot fragments rises from 20 mu m at current 12 A to 120 mu m at current 100 A. Observations with high temporal resolution (exposure time 6 ns) reveal the significant changes of cathode spot brightness occurring within about 10 ns time interval.

The present report generalizes materials of publication /1-3/. In doing so /1/ and /3/ were presented at appropriate symposiums only as poster reports and were not widely discussed. Creation of reliable physical and engineering models of sequence of leader-return stroke of lightning (L-RS) and an attachment process is hampered by lack of actual information on the optical picture of low-luminous streamer structures of lightning. Cameras based on an image converter tubes (ICT) /4/ serve as an alternative of traditional optical-mechanical means for recording a lightning image. Such cameras allowed to obtain new reults when investigating streamer processes of a long spark what made it possible to formulate a set of hypothesizes relating to a leader process of lightning /5-7/. Here there are given the characteristics of the image converter instrumentation complex adapted to the work with lightning and a long spark and there are presented the results of its tests in the All-Russian Electro-technical Institute (VEI) named after V.I. Lenin when recording a long spark on the open high-voltage stand in Istra (near Moscow).

Since August 2003 the K008 camera /1,2/ being coupled with a MS 3504i monochromator/spectrogaph /3/ has been used in the International Laser Center in Bratislava (Slovak Republic) for investigations in the field of non-stationary spectroscopy, in particular, for the study of fluorescence processes in different dyes. When putting the camera into operation its limiting temporal resolution was prelinarily checked and was found to be 20ps. The results of trial experiments on the study of dynamics of Rhodamin B fluorescence are given below.

The report gives the result of image K008 camera/1, 2/ application in trial experiments on laser sounding of water width from the air to determine the possibility of detecting and identifying objects dipped into the water and in the future for detecting and identifying objects dipped into the water and in the future for detecting a parasitic water-plant in the Sevang Lake in Armenia and drawing a map of its distribution across the depth throughout aquatory of the Lake.

In May 2001 the K008 camera/1,2/ being a part of a laser Doppler velocity meter (LDVM) experimental complex of the Russion Federation Nuclear Center, the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF), was tested under real conditions of gas-dynamic experiments. Some tasks typical to explosion physics were solved during these experiments: the record of velocities of the plates thrown by an explosion; the record of shock and detonation wave fronts; the record of elastic-plastic properties of constructional materials. At the same time the following camera's characterstics were checke: resistance to electromagnetic, acoustic and light interference; conformity of real characteristics to Documentation data; convenience in operation and reliability.

The temperature dependences of heat capacity of interpenetrating polymer networks based on crosslinked poly(cyanurate) and poly(urethane) derived from glycerol, 2,4-tolylene diisocyanate, and oligo(oxytetramethylene glycol) (M-n = 10(3)) in the 6-340 K range were studied using adiabatic vacuum calorimetry with a precision of about 0.2%. Using a calorimeter equipped with a static bomb and an isothermal shell, the enthalpies of combustion of the crosslinked PU and of the three samples of interpenetrating polymer networks containing 10, 30, and 50 wt % of the crosslinked poly(cyanurate) were measured. On the basis of the experimental data, the thermodynamic functions of the research subjects Hdegrees(T)-Hdegrees(0), Sdegrees(T)-Sdegrees(0), and Gdegrees(T)-Hdegrees(0) for the range from T --> 0 to T = 340 K were calculated and the standard enthalpies of combustion DeltaH(c)(degrees) and the thermodynamic parameters of formation DeltaH(f)(degrees), DeltaS(f)(degrees), and DeltaG(f)(degrees) at 298.15 K were determined. The data obtained were used to calculate the enthalpy DeltaH(p)(degrees), entropy AS', and Gibbs functions DeltaG(p)(degrees) for the preparation of interpenetrating polymer networks through the reaction of crosslinked poly(cyanurate) and bisphenol A dicyanate ester (with a content of poly(cyanurate) in the networks of 10, 30, 50 wt %) in the ran-e from T --> 0 to T = 340 K. It was shown that the isotherms of diverse thermodynamic properties of interpenetrating polymer networks plotted versus their composition, in particular, the molar fraction of the crosslinked PU per conditional mole, can be described by straight lines. This makes it possible to estimate the thermodynamic behavior of interpenetrating polymer networks of any composition at standard pressure within a wide temperature range.

The heat capacity of cobalt acrylate monohydrate and the corresponding metal-containing polymer was studied in the range from (7 to 8) to 348 K by vacuum adiabatic and isothermal calorimetry. Their heats of combustion were determined. The data obtained were used to calculate the thermodynamic functions C-p(o) (T), H-o(T) - H-o(0), S-o(T) - S-o(0), and G(o)(T) - H-o(0) of the metal-containing monomer and the polymer for the 0-350 K range, their standard enthalpies of combustion DeltaH(c)(o), and the thermodynamic parameters of formation from elements at 298.15 K. The enthalpy DeltaH(pol)(o), entropy DeltaS(pol)(o), and Gibbs energy DeltaG(pol)(o) of bulk polymerization of cobalt acrylate monohydrate were calculated for the 0-350 K range. At T= 298.15 K and standard pressure, their values are -37 kJ/mol, -35 J/(K mol), and -27 kJ/mol, respectively.