Triggering of cold-cathode thyratron in electric circuit with grounded grid

Abstract

Dependence of pre-breakdown time on ionization processes in a pseudospark discharge AIP Advances 7, 115005 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5003242Development of high-power gas discharge and electronic vacuum devices for pulsed electrophysic. This paper deals with the investigations of the sealed-off hold-cathode thyratron (pseudospark switch) TPI1-10k/50, which is commercially produced by the Pulsed Technology Ltd., Ryazan, Russia. The trigger unit of the switch is based on a low-current auxiliary glow discharge. The new method for the switch triggering is proposed. The essence of the method is that the thyratron grid and the hollow cathode of the auxiliary discharge has to be grounded and the trigger pulse is applied to the ring anode of the trigger unit. In the proposed method, an undesirable high-voltage spike at the thyratron grid, which can appear with a usage of the other methods of triggering, is absent. It is shown that to trigger the thyratron a critical pulsed current to the main cathode cavity at a level of 0.8 A and higher should be provided. When the current exceeds the critical value, the jitter in the delay time to triggering falls in a range of 10 ns. This means that the method of triggering can be used in a variety of applications that require a low jitter in the delay time. © 2017 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license

Low-pressure discharges with hollow cathode and hollow anode and their applications

“…In early publications many investigations were presented for the switch prototypes on the basis of demountable experimental chambers with external gas filling. Now the sealed-off switches, in which the operating pressure is maintained due to a heated hydrogen reservoir, are developed [38,40,53,54,62,[90][91][92].…”

“…A schematic design of the thyratron TPI1-10k/50 (pulsed current at a level of 10 kA and anode voltage up to 50 kV) is shown in figure 15 [53,62]. The ceramic casing of the device has an external diameter of 95 mm.…”

“…When the switch is intended to commute a moderate current, one bore hole at the device axis is normally used [38]. For enhanced currents, mutihole designs have been developed [39,40,53]. The operating pressure in the thyratron is maintained due to a hydrogen reservoir, which is powered by a voltage V H at a current of about 2 A.…”

“…This arrangement is designed to operate with extremely high pulsed current and is often used in switching devices [2,[38][39][40]. The devices, based on a similar electrode system, are often called cold cathode thyratrons, or thyratrons with grounded grid, or pseudospark switches [2,[38][39][40][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. The latter term was proposed in [39,40].…”

Control and Stabilization of Centimeter Scale Glow Discharge in Ambient Air Using Pulse-Width Modulation

“…The term "gliding arc" was initially suggested based on the visual appearance of the discharge; however, a more detailed study revealed that this type of discharge burns in a glow regime. Therefore, in the present work, we use the more physically correct term "gliding glow" discharge instead of the frequently used "gliding arc" [22]- [24].…”