Synchronous Trigger Technology and Discharge Characteristics of Multiparallel Gas Switches Based on Parallel Plate Transmission Lines

Abstract

This article proposes a gas switch with a low inductance (31 nH), a wide operating coefficient (≥50%), a rapid breakdown (< 100 ns), and a high intensity of current (532 kA/7.8 C). We also design a synchronous trigger system for discharging multiparallel switches while ensuring significant scalability and low cost. The maximum amplitude of the outputs of 16 pulses under high-resistance loads was 77.1 kV/14 ns (10%–90% rise time). Following this, we built a 200-kJ compact pulsed power device by using parallel plate transmission lines. This device can reduce the overall inductance by 14% compared with the previous generation of devices. We also investigated the factors influencing synchronous discharge as well as the conditions for the synchronous discharge of 16 gas switches in parallel. At an operating voltage of 70 kV, the maximum amplitude of the short-discharge current was 5.5 MA (deviation was less than 3%) and the shortest rise time was around <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1 ~\mu \text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> (10%–90% rise time). The stable operation of the device is important for physics research on the load.