Effects of Optical Pulse Parameters on a Pulsed UV-Illuminated Switch and Their Adjusting Methods

Ultraviolet (UV) illumination can effectively shorten the statistical lag and jitter in gas breakdown processes. The spark gap discharge can produce abundant spectrum including UV waveband. In this paper, a simple but reliable spark gap operating with N
₂
at atmospheric pressure is used to test optical radiation characteristics, such as spectrum intensity, rise time, fall time, and duration of optical pulse, which are adjusted by changing the circuit or configuration parameters. Three UV-illuminated switches with different UV spark gap configurations have been tested. The experimental results approve our assumption. With a uniform electric field UV spark gap, the breakdown voltage standard deviation percentage of the switch is 0.74%.