Spark gap triggering with photoconductive switches
Photoconductive switches are well suited for triggering spark gaps since the triggering event is short and requires very little energy. Photoswitches offer fast-rising pulses of short duration with voltage levels of several tens of kV and tens of ps jitter and can be very simple in design, whereas typical trigger sources require multiple stages to generate tens of kV needed to effectively trigger a spark gap of the same potential and usually suffer from slow risetimes. This paper presents methods aimed at triggering spark gaps with photoswitches. Both linear and nonlinear photoswitches are discussed and their associated problems are presented.
A compact pulse generator using diode opening switch for engine gas treatment application
In this paper a compact pulse generator is proposed for NOx  removal system using a corona discharge effect from the exhaust gas of engine cars. A compact pulser based on diodes for opening switches and inductive energy storage has been developed. The pulser consists of a pulse compression circuit including a primary low-voltage stored capacitor, a semiconductor closing switch (a thyristor) as its initial switch, a saturable pulse transformer, and secondary high-voltage circuit including a capacitor, opening diodes, and a resistive load. The experiment results of a proposed pulser with resistance of 200 Omega are following: the voltage amplitude is about 21 kV, the rise time (between 0.1~0.9 of amplitude) is about 21 ns, the pulse width in full width at half maximum (FWHM) is about 42 ns
Carrier density and thermal images of transient filaments in GaAs photoconductive switches
A pulsed laser based schlieren optical system is utilized to obtain time resolved carrier density and thermal images of filaments in GaAs photoconductive switches. Sub-nanosecond time resolution with carrier density and thermal sensitivities of better than 3X10 15 1/cc and 0.1 K respectively have been demonstrated.