Multichannel and Impedance Analysis of the Laser-Triggered Rimfire Gas Switch

Many pulsed power applications require multichannel switching because of stringent low erosion and low impedance requirements. Rimfire, which is a multigap multichanneling switch, has been implemented extensively for this purpose at Sandia National Laboratories for several decades, but with incomplete understanding. This paper presents a thorough experimental analysis of impedance and multichanneling characteristics for a multigap switch under the influence of a laser trigger and in an SF₆ environment. The implications of these results on the future design of multichanneling multigap gas switches are also presented