Plasma opening switch using laser-produced plasma

In order to construct a practical inductive energy storage pulsed power generator, the development of the opening switch which can repeatedly conduct a large current and then rapidly interrupt this current is necessary. Though the plasma opening switch (POS) can interrupt a large current rapidly, the effective number of switch operations is limited because of the decrease of the carbon sprayed on the insulator with each shot. We proposed a plasma opening switch using laserproduced plasma as one of opening switches which can be repeatedly used. The another advantage of the POS with the laser produced plasma is that it becomes possible to select more suitable plasma species for the operation of POS by changing the target materials. Here, the target materials are changed.