A Compact UV-Illuminated Three-Electrode Field-Distortion Gas Switch With Sub-Nanosecond Jitter

The three-electrode field-distortion gas switch (TFGS) is one of the typical gas switches used for Marx generators. To reduce the jitter of the TFGS further, it is an effective method to add an ultraviolet (UV)-illumination structure in the switch. In this article, a novel compact UV-illuminated TFGS, which integrates the voltage-dividing resistor and the trigger pin together inside the switch, is proposed and investigated. The trigger performance of the UV-illuminated TFGS under different trigger voltages, working coefficients, and UV-illuminated gap distances is studied experimentally. The synchronous trigger performance of the switch is also tested in a three-stage Marx generator. The results show that the UV-illuminated TFGS has good self-breakdown and trigger characteristics. At the charging voltage of ±60 kV and the trigger voltage of 80 kV, the jitters are only 0.8 and 0.65 ns when the working coefficients are 65% and 70%, respectively. The optimal distance of the UV-illuminated gap is 4 mm. In addition, the UV-illuminated TFGS also has good synchronous trigger characteristics. The jitter of the three-stage Marx generator which consists of three UV-illuminated TFGSs is less than 2.0 ns when the working coefficient is more than 62%.