Recent advances in thyratron design

The task of thyratron design and manufacture has advanced the capabilities of the thyratron significantly. These advances depend not only on the ability to examine a specific set of operating parameters and tailor the thyratron to meet those requirements, but also on the ability to design and construct circuits for the purposes of testing. The motivation for development of new thyratrons is, almost without exception, driven entirely by specific application requirements, and this, as a matter of necessity, usually entails a short development turn-around time. The author describes some examples of thyratron developments which have required enhancement of various combinations of the following parameters: recovery time; operating voltage; rate of rise of current; average power; peak power; repetition rate; inductance (i.e. length of device); and immunity to capacitive triggering. The author gives four examples: the CX1725, a double-gap hollow-anode thyratron; the CX2025, a four-gap thyratron; the CX2024, also four gap; and the CX1836 for which the author discusses immunity to capacitive triggering