Reproducibility of Microsecond Self-Breakdown Water Switch With Negative Field Enhancement

Based on the “QiangGuang-I” facility, three negatively enhanced microsecond water switches are experimentally studied, and their self-breakdown reproducibilities are particularly investigated and compared. Experimental results show that the annular-cathode-plate switch has a lower jitter (about 110 ns) and its lifespan can be up to 100 shots. Moreover, it is found that the close jitter decreases with the increase of negative field-enhancement factor
f
(the ratio of the maximum electric-field strength to the mean one of the anode-cathode gap). Finally, the experimental phenomena mentioned previously are particularly discussed according to the results of optical (3-5 ns gated charge-coupled device) and electrical diagnostics.