Experimental study on laser triggered surface flashover switch in vacuum

Surface flashover switch have been investigated as a low inductance, low pulsed rate and low jitter command triggered switch. The development and mechanism of surface flashover switch are introduced in this paper. Experiments was carried out to study optically induced surface flashover characteristics. The Nd:YAG laser (wavelengthes are 1 024, 532, 355 nm) was used to induce flashover in the experiment. The DC flashover phenomena induced by laser with different wavelength, energy and focus shape were described. Experimental results indicated that the delay time and jitter was decreased at constant surface electric field strength with laser energy increase, and the range of triggering voltage was extended at the meantime. The jitter was decreasing with the decreasing laser wavelength. The f