Development of a sub-nanosecond jitter eight-output 150-kv trigger generator*

One developing direction of large drive sources today is that tens of modules, consisting of hundreds of pulsed power stages connected in series, operate in parallel to produce a high pulsed power required. One set of reliable trigger system providing multi-output trigger pulses with low delay and jitter is crucial to synchronize for many pulsed power modules reliably. To search a simple spark gap structure as the output switch of the developed trigger generator, a trigatron with a disc-shaped trigger electrode and its modified structure with a rod-shaped trigger electrode are fabricated and tested in this paper. The results indicate that the two gas spark gaps have similar breakdown delay and jitter when the charging voltage ratio is higher than 80%, but the modified version has a wider operating voltage range. For its better operating performance and simplified structure, the modified spark gap structure has been chosen as the output switch, and a set of compact 150-kV trigger generator with eight output cables is developed. Testing results indicate that the developed trigger generator in this paper provides a highest output voltage of about 150-kV with a risetime of 10-ns (for four or less than four output cables) or 16-ns (for eight output cables), and a short output delay of less than 20-ns with a jitter of less than 1-ns. Similar operating performance data has been obtained through the primary synchronizing operation of two sets such trigger generators, which indicates that the novel developed trigger generator possesses a potential of a lot numbers operating in parallel to provide enough output trigger pulses for synchronizing hundreds of pulsed power modules.