Experimental study of PCSS triggered high voltage gas switch

Summary form only given. Super-powerful pulsed systems needs more accurate timing synchronization because more high voltage gas switches for higher pulsed power will be needed. Therefore triggering of high voltage gas switches will become a key factor affecting performance of pulsed systems. This paper reports on an experimental study of developing a photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) to trigger high voltage gas switches. The switch has the possibility of low-jitter and sub-nanosecond rise-time so the performance of the triggers for high voltage gas switches will be able to improve significantly. A gas switch which is designed for a LTD module has been used as the main switch. The PCSS with electrode gap of about 24 mm was fabricated from semi- insulating GaAs of which the most notable defect was EL2. The PCSS is attached between a main electrode and the trigger electrode of the gas switch. The gas switch is charged from ??25kV to ??40kV. The delay of the system to indicate between the light signal which is measured by an optical probe from the Laser and the current signal which is measured by a current probe of the main circuit has been recorded. The structure of the PCSS and the test system will also be described.