Experimental study of the multichanneling self-break section of the rimfire switch

Many accelerators at Sandia National Laboratories utilize the Rimfire gas switch for high-voltage, high-power switching. In addition, there are many multichannel closing switches used in pulsed power applications. This paper presents a study of the multichanneling section of the Rimfire switch. The electrical effects of multichanneling and a method to force multichanneling are presented. In addition, an objective curve fitting method is utilized to deduce switch inductance from the measured data.