Behaviour of high current switch for LMJ project

The pulsed power system for the Megajoule laser (LMJ) facility [1] will use high current, high charge gas switches. One of the candidates is the switch developed by IHCE (Institute of High Current Electronics) and ITHPP which is described in [2]. Some complementary experiments have been conducted at CEA to know some limits of this device. The first one was to use the switch in short-circuit in order to increase the peak current and the charges transferred by the switch. The current has been increased to 380 kA and the total charge across the switch reached 420 C. The second experiment is dealing with the sensitivity of the gas purge. The goal was to know the behaviour of this switch when the gas is not replaced after the shot. In any cases the switch resists to this news stresses.