Effects of gas switch jitter on output peak power and pulse front

Numerical representations of switch delay and jitter are given according to previous experimental data and theories. Random arrays are created by Matlab to simulate switch delay and jitter. A simplified model is established to calculate the working characteristics of linear transformer driver (LTD) module with multiple bricks in parallel. M-file is used to control the time sequence of the multiple switches in module to simulate switch jitters. Then effects of switch jitters on peak power and pulse front of 40-brick LTD module with 1 MA peak current and 100 ns rise time are studied. The simulation result shows that, in a certain range, with the increase of jitter, the peak power and system stability decrease, and pulse front increases remarkably. The decrease rate of peak power increases with the increase of jitter, and the pulse front increases almost linearly. Since the switch jitter has important influences on system output, there is a jitter threshold to satisfy certain system stability requirement. As for 1 MA LTD module with 40 bricks in parallel, the jitter threshold is about 17 ns when the system stability requirement is ±5%.