Exploring Wide Working Coefficient of Trigatron Gas Switches: A Comparative Study With Different Trigger Structures

Abstract

Reducing breakdown delay and jitter, and broadening the working voltage range of gas switches have been paramount challenges in pulse switch research. This study centers on trigger methods of trigatron gas switch, designing and testing three trigger structures—conventional, microprotrusion, and microplasma jet—under various conditions. Furthermore, synchronization experiments were conducted and compared under different trigger structures. The experimental results showed that the trigatron switch exhibits fast and slow breakdown modes with the conventional trigger structure and both the microprotrusion and microplasma jet trigger structures can reduce the breakdown delay and jitter by creating strong electric field distortion and providing initial electrons. The microprotrusion structure enables the switch to operate stably at a working coefficient higher than 50%, with a breakdown delay and jitter as low as 76.44 and 1.37 ns, while the microplasma jet structure enables the switch to operate at a working coefficient as low as 40%, with a breakdown delay and jitter of 78.15 and 5.83 ns, respectively. Compared with the microprotrusion structure, the microplasma jet trigger structure can achieve a lower working coefficient and performs excellently in synchronization experiments.