Design and investigation of a capacitance-coupling pre-ionized sharpening switch.

The sharpening switch is one of the most important elements in the trigger generator, which is used to sharpen the front of the trigger pulse. The breakdown performance of the sharpening switch has an important influence on the output and stability of the trigger generator. In this paper, a novel 200 kV capacitance-coupling pre-ionized sharpening switch, which can realize pre-ionization by dividing voltage through its own structural capacitances, is proposed and investigated. In order to obtain the optimal parameters of the pre-ionized sharpening switch, the influences of the electrode structure, electrode material, main gap distance, and pre-ionized gap distance on the breakdown performance are studied experimentally. The experimental results show that the electrode structure with a circular knife-edged cathode and a plate-shaped anode has the smallest breakdown jitter, followed by the needle-plate structure and the tapered ball-head structure. The stainless steel electrode has the smallest jitter, followed by graphite, aluminum, and brass electrodes. When the gap distances of the main gap and the pre-ionized gap are 13 and 1.5 mm, respectively, the breakdown stability of the pre-ionized sharpening switch is the best. Under an input voltage pulse with a rise time of about one microsecond, the jitter of the capacitance-coupling pre-ionized sharpening switch with the optimal parameters is 6.08 ns, which is about 0.6% of the rise time of the input pulse. The jitter decreases by 44.5% compared to the switch without pre-ionization. The rise time of the output pulse is sharpened to 17 ns, corresponding to a voltage rise rate of more than 11 kV/ns.

A 80 kV gas switch triggered by a 17 µJ fiber-optic laser.

A gas switch triggered by µJ laser pulses was developed. The switch employed a 10 mm-gap GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) mounted in parallel with one of its two gaps. The dark current-voltage characteristic of the PCSS was obtained, and the gas switch characteristics at different bias voltages were experimentally investigated. The results indicate that the switch can be triggered reliably by using a 17 µJ laser pulse, and the jitter is less than 3 ns at the bias voltage of 80 kV and 60% of the self-breakdown voltage.

Note: Multi-gap gas switch with low trigger-threshold voltage by mounting resistors and capacitors in parallel with switch gaps.

To reduce the trigger threshold voltage of the multi-gap gas switch used for linear transformer drivers, a method is proposed by mounting resistors and capacitors in parallel with the switch gaps. Based on the circuit model of the six-gap gas switch, the gap voltage distribution during the triggering process is analyzed. When the multi-gap gas switch is triggered, the voltage distribution between gaps is mainly determined by the stray capacitance between electrodes. In such condition, the trigger voltage is not fully applied on the trigger gap, and as a consequence, a higher trigger voltage is required for obtaining a low jitter. The effects of capacitor parameters on the triggering characteristics of the switch are experimentally investigated. Compared with the original switch design, the results indicate that at a charging voltage of ±80 kV and operating at 60% of the self-breakdown voltage, the trigger voltage is reduced from 110 kV to 75 kV while the 3.2 ns jitter of the switch is preserved.

Development of a Marx-coupled trigger generator with high voltages and low time delay.

Coupled by the Marx of the "JianGuang-I" facility, a high voltage, low time-delay trigger generator was developed. Working principles of this trigger generator and its key issues were described in detail. Structures of this generator were also carefully designed and optimized. Based on the "JianGuang-I" Marx generator, a test stand was established. And a series of experiment tests were carried out to the study performance of this trigger generator. Experiment results show that the output voltage of this trigger generator can be continuously adjusted from 58 kV to 384 kV. The time delay (from the beginning of the Marx-discharging pulse to the time that the output pulse of the trigger generator arises) of this trigger pulse is about 200 ns and its peak time (0%∼100%) is less than 50 ns. Experiment results also indicate that the time-delay jitter of trigger voltages decreases rapidly with the increase in the peak voltage of trigger pulses. When the trigger voltage is higher than 250 kV, the time-delay jitters (the standard deviation) are less than 7.7 ns.

Note: A rectangular pulse generator for 50 kV voltage, 0.8 ns rise time, and 10 ns pulse width based on polymer-film switch.

In this article, we describe a rectangular pulse generator, consisting of a polymer-film switch, a tri-plate transmission line, and parallel post-shaped ceramic resistor load, for 50-kV voltage, 0.8-ns rise time, and 10-ns width. The switch and resistors are arranged in atmospheric air and the transmission line can work in atmospheric air or in transformer oil to change the pulse width from 6.7 ns to 10 ns. The fast switching and low-inductance characteristics of the polymer-film switch ensure the fast rising wavefront of <1 ns. This generator can be applied in the calibration of nanosecond voltage dividers and used for electromagnetic pulse tests as a fast-rising current injection source.

Low voltage pulse injection test of a single-stage 1 MV prototype induction voltage adder cell.

Low voltage pulse injection tests have been done on a 1 MV prototype induction cell. The tests mainly aim at measuring azimuthal uniformity of feed currents and evaluating cell electrical parameters. Tests are conducted under two cases that the cell is fed by a single pulse and two pulses, respectively. The results indicate that, in the case of the single-point feed, the best current uniformity with an azimuthal variation of 19.3% is acquired when azimuthal lines connect to cathode plates with lower half circumferences. In the case of two-pulse synchronous feed, the current uniformity becomes better, and a current with an azimuthal variation of 11.8% is achieved. Moreover, the effects of asynchronous feed on current uniformity are also experimentally investigated. The results imply that, for given injecting pulses with the duration of 70-80 ns, a time deviation less than 30 ns could be acceptable, without obvious degradation on the feed uniformity and current addition. In addition, the influences of the current uniformity and amounts of feed pulses on cell equivalent inductances are evaluated. The experiment results show that, the equivalent inductance would nearly keep a value of 130 nH as the current variation is less than 50%. However, the extreme asymmetry of feed currents or the increase of amounts of feed pulses would produce additional inductance.