Characterization of on-state resistance of electrically triggered vacuum surface flashover switch

Electrically triggered Vacuum Surface Flashover Switches (VSFS) are suitable for high voltage and high power conversion applications because of their advantages of high turn-on speed, high insulation recovery speed, small size, and simple structure. Low on-state resistance, which determines the output efficiency of the pulsed power system and its own lifetime, is an important index of high-performance VSFS. In this paper, the variation rule of the on-state resistance of VSFS under square wave current condition and exponential decay current condition and the influencing factors are investigated by experiment. The experimental results show that in the on-state stage, the operating voltage has a greater effect on the VSFS on-state resistance, and the trigger energy have a smaller effect on the VSFS on-state resistance.