High Power, High Voltage, Ultra-Fast UV Triggered Diamond Switch

"The successful Phase I high power, high voltage UV triggered diamond switch effort has set the stage for this Phase II program, in response to commercial drivers found in the directed energy weapon, military radar, high speed rail transportation, and powerutility industrial sectors. The 1 MW power switching laboratory demonstrations for periods up to 10's of nanoseconds will be extended to prototype 100 MW power switching levels for durations of 100's of nanoseconds and burst mode operation at 50 Hz. Theprototype diamond switch module will be enabled by the development of a novel UV flash lamp which will dramatically extend the capability of the Phase I UV laser trigger. The building block nature of the prototype 100 kV/ 1 kA module will allow a widerange of applications to be supported by packaging the modules in various serial and parallel configurations. This will be demonstrated using two prototype modules innovatively configured to support 200 MW power switching."