Plasma erosion opening switch using laser-produced plasma

An opening switch which can repeatedly conduct a large current and then rapidly interrupt this current is necessary to construct a practical inductive energy storage pulsed power generator. Though the plasma erosion opening switch (PEOS) can interrupt a large current rapidly, the effective number of switch operations is limited because of the decrease of the carbon sprayed on the insulator with each shot. Here, a PEOS using a laser-produced plasma, which can possibly be operated for hundreds of thousands of shots without maintenance, is studied experimentally.