US Patent 7994729 Optical element driving circuit

An optical element driving circuit flexibly configures energy sources to cause illumination with an optical output element, such as a flash lamp. The energy sources include an illumination capacitor and a capacitive voltage divider circuit coupled with the optical output element. The illumination capacitor may be charged to a first voltage and a boost capacitor of the capacitive voltage divider circuit may be charged to a second voltage that is a fraction of the first voltage. The optical element driving circuit also includes a triggering circuit coupled with the capacitive voltage divider circuit. The triggering circuit is configured to place a sum of the first voltage and the second voltage across the optical output element.