This paper describes characteristic of a light triggered thyristor investigated by experiment to adopt it into a main switch of a pulsed power unit. Triggering principle of the light triggered thyristor are referred with its structure and equivalent circuit. Operational principle and simulation result of a capacitive pulsed power circuit are explained. A variety of triggering conditions of triggering circuit and characteristics on turn-on, turn-off, voltage dividing in series operation, overvoltage protection function of the light triggered thyristor are investigated by experiments. Experimental result of 40 kJ pulsed power unit using the light triggered thyristor is presented.