A High-Voltage and High-Current Triggered Vacuum Switch

High-power and high-current test technology has many requirements for a discharging switch, such as high hold-off voltage, wide operating voltage scope, short discharging delay time and jitter, strong charge transfer ability, and long lifetime. A high-voltage and high-current triggered vacuum switch (TVS) with a surface flashover trigger device has been designed, and the trigger device is made from a material whose relative dielectric constant ε
_r
is around 2500. The experimental circuits are set up, and the experiments are performed. The experimental results showed that the TVS can be used at a maximum voltage of up to 120 kV, the minimum operation voltage is 1.3 kV, the maximum discharging delay time is less than 400 ns, and the minimum discharging delay time and jitter reach to 100 and 10 ns, respectively. The maximum current switched is about 180 kA, and the maximum transfer charge per shot is larger than 2.5 C. The switch can satisfy the main demands of crowbar circuit applications and can be used on high-voltage and high-current application situations.