An ultra compact back-lighted thyratron for nanosecond switching applications

Author

Chen, Hao ; Jiang, Chunqi ; Kuthi, Andras ; Gundersen, Martin A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng.-Electrophys., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Volume

16

Issue

4

fYear

2009

fDate

8/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1043

Lastpage

1047

Abstract

An ultra-compact back-lighted thyratron (BLT), which is also named as mini-BLT, with effective volume of 15 cm³ was developed to serve as a high voltage switch in compact transient plasma ignition systems. The mini-BLT can hold off 40 kV and was used to conduct a peak current up to 4.5 kA. A 30 ns switching delay with 2 ns jitter was achieved when triggered by a 70 mJ, 355 nm laser pulse. Delay and jitter increase as the photon energy of the trigger pulse decreases. The plasma density in the switch measured at a peak current of 3.2 kA is 9Ã—10¹⁴cm^-3. The mini-BLT was successfully used as the switch in a 100 ns, 60 kV pulse generator for generation of streamers in a plasma ignition system.

Keywords

pulse generators; thyratrons; compact transient plasma ignition systems; nanosecond switching applications; pulse generator; ultracompact back-lighted thyratron; voltage 40 kV; voltage 60 kV; Delay; Ignition; Jitter; Plasma applications; Plasma density; Plasma measurements; Pulse generation; Switches; Thyratrons; Voltage; Pseudospark, back-lighted thyratron, optical trigger, pulsed power, transient plasma, streamer, ignition.;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1070-9878

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TDEI.2009.5211852

Filename

5211852