An optical measuring method to obtain the turn-on time of a MV output switch

The output switch is a key component which connects the pulse power generator and the antenna in an intense electromagnetic pulse simulator and its turning on and off can reflect the working condition of the simulator. In order to measure the turn-on time of the output switch, the formative time of the switch is analyzed based on avalanche and streamer theory, and the optical technique which provides a method via optical fiber transmission for penetrating into high voltage cavities with the advantages of insulation and electromagnetic interference is adopted. A measuring system based on optical fiber and silicon PIN detector is developed, and an experimental platform for testing the synchronous characteristics is established. The experiments are carried out using a one-to-one scale output switch model. The experimental results show that the measuring system is excellent in electromagnetic resistance, the start point of the measured optical signal is clear to recognize; the average time delay between start points of the optical signal and the current signal is 20.42ns, the range and the jitter of the time delay are 0.78ns and 0.4ns; the designed optical system can be used to monitor the turn-on time of the output switch.