United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

Rodney A Petr

Mark J Kushner

Stanley R Byron

John F Zumdieck

Israel Smilanski

Thomas Burkes

A high voltage linear switch assembly is disclosed that uses a hollow quartz tube as the insulator, and houses the anode, cathode and switch within the insulator tube. The anode and cathode are fixed within the tube on opposite sides so that they do not make physical contact with each other. A chamber filled with either hydrogen or helium and a metal electrode screen act as the switch as follows. By separating the anode from the cathode the gas filled chamber normally acts as an open circuit. When a charge is conducted by the metal electrode screen, the gas in the chamber is ionized and provides a medium to provide electrical contact between the anode and the cathode.

High voltage insulators for long, linear switches

The low pressure gas-filled thyratron is scalable in the long dimension. Internally the tube is formed as a tetrode, with an auxiliary grid placed between the cathode and the control grid. A DC or pulsed power source drives the auxiliary grid both to insure uniform cathode emission and to provide a grid-cathode plasma prior to commutation. The high voltage holdoff structure consists of the anode, the control grid and its electrostatic shielding baffles, and a main quartz insulator. A small gas flow supply and exhaust system is used that eliminates the need for a hydrogen reservoir and permits other gases, such as helium, to be used. The thyratron provides a low inductance, high current, long lifetime switch configuration; useful for switch-on applications involving large scale lasers and other similar loads that are distributed in a linear geometry.

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Rodney A Petr