Micro-plasma jet improves triggering in pulsed power technology

Applications for pulsed power technology are rapidly growing. High repetition rate pulsed power sources are showing up everywhere from plasma treatment and medical procedures to exhaust gas treatment and microwave synthesis.

These applications all require precise triggering to improve stability. Many switch triggering methods have been developed, including electric pulse triggering, laser triggering, and self-triggering, however all of these methods are susceptible to jitter and breakdown. Tian et al. presented a method using a micro-plasma jet.

“Our previous research found that the use of plasma jet-triggered switches can achieve stable triggering at low working coefficients, which can effectively reduce the probability of false triggering for large parallel synchronized pulsed power systems,” said author Li Chen. “However, the triggering jitter was large, so we explored ways to reduce the breakdown jitter and provide a new type of triggering method with excellent performance for applications such as high-power synthesis.”

The researchers used a laser-powered microjet and low-power pulse source to reduce jitter and improve reliability. They tested the breakdown voltage dispersion using double-pulse experiments and imaged the micro-plasma jet with a high-speed camera to asses capillary structure parameters and gas pressure on the breakdown dispersion. Their results demonstrated reliable triggering at different repetition rates. Additionally, they demonstrated the durability of their method with a test of a million triggers, which showed no reduction in performance.

“We hope that this work can be applied to large pulsed power systems, such as high-power microwave synthesis, linear transformer drivers, pulse sources, and more as well as contribute to high-power pulsed power systems,” said Chen.

Source: “Design and characteristics of a fiber laser powered repetitive micro-plasma jet triggered gas switch,” by Sitong Tian, Li Chen, Haojie Cao, and Xiaoqian Zhang, Review of Scientific Instruments (2024). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0223370 .