Metal foil gap switch and its electrical properties

Abstract

In order to reduce the volume of exploding initiator system, a metal foil spark gap switch was designed and fabricated using magnetron sputter deposition and standard microelectronic technology. The switch constitutes of two main electrodes and a trigger electrode, and stylus profiler was employed to ascertain dimension of the switch. We discussed the discharge characterization of the metal foil spark gap switch under nitrogen atmosphere and at pressure of 0.5 bars, 0.75 bars, 1.0 bar, 1.25 bars, 1.5 bars, and 1.75 bars, respectively. The relationship between self-breakdown voltage of the switch and pressure times distance corresponds to linearity. The switch had short delay time and low time jitter when the operating voltage was between 70% and 90% of its self-breakdown voltage. Compared with a commercial stereo spark gap switch, when it was fired by a conventional capacitive discharge unit, the firing circuit had lower inductance and higher resistance.