Abstract: To study the applicability of the electrically triggered vacuum surface flashover switch under medium and small current, vacuum surface flashover switch samples based on direct plated copper technology are designed and fabricated, an experimental platform for testing the switch operating characteristics is established. The voltage hold-off characteristics, trigger characteristics and life characteristics of the switch are preliminarily studied. The results show that: the DC withstand voltage of the vacuum surface flashover switch with an effective gap distance of 7.2 mm is about 40 kV; the conduction delay is 89.9 ns and the jitter is 13.1 ns under the working voltage of 18 kV, and the switch can be reliably triggered in the range of 1 kV to 18 kV; no obvious change in the characteristics of the switch is observed after being triggered for about 2300 times.