Pseudospark switch is a kind of low pressure pulsed discharge switch which works at the left hand of the Paschen’s curve

ignites in the hollow cathode and presents dispersive discharge channel. It has the advantages of large current capacity

high repetition rate

wide working range

long lifetime

small jitter and low erosion rate. In this paper

a double-gap and multi-channel pseudospark switch is developed

which is semi-sealed with ceramic and metal. The working gas is helium

and the trigger unit is of the charge injection structure based on BaTiO3 with high dielectric constant. The discharge characteristics and operation modes of the trigger unit under different pulses are studied

and the effects of gas pressure

pulse rising edge and energy on the charge injection characteristics of the trigger unit

triggering delay and anode voltage dropping rate are studied. Besides

the multi-channel synchronous triggering characteristics of the switch are analyzed according to the electrode erosion morphology

and the current quenching phenomenon is discussed according to discharge waveforms. The experimental results show that there are two operation modes of the trigger unit discharge

namely

pulsed corona and flashover along the surface; high pressure and high energy trigger pulse are conducive to reducing the triggering delay

jitter and anode voltage dropping time. The pulse with fast rising edge is beneficial to reducing the jitter

and anode voltage has no obvious influence on delay and jitter. The switch can realize multi-channel synchronous triggering and conduction

and there are two quenching forms under the condition of small current.