Plasma-filled diode power increase due to the growth of the current rise rate

The characteristics of the plasma-filled diode when changing the current rise rate by 2 times were obtained. The rise rate was varied by changing the inductance of the secondary coil vacuum line of the linear transformer used as a pulsed power driver. The possibility of increasing the current amplitude by increasing its rise rate was demonstrated at fixed initial conditions. So, increase in the current rise rate by 2 times resulted in the rise of the current amplitude from 100 to 185 kA, transmitted charge from 6 to 10 mC while retaining the low-resistance phase duration of 100 ns. At the current amplitude rise by more than 1.5 times, the diode impedance rise rate in a high-resistance phase was retained at the level of 0.5 Ω/ns which allowed increasing the diode power by 1.6 times from 100 to 160 GW. The diode voltage remained at the level of approximately 1 MV due to the fast current drop in a high-resistance phase. Conservation of the resistance rise rate allows forecasting the growth of the diode voltage proportional to the current in case of increasing the current rise rate without reducing the inductance.