Experimental Study on Breakdown Time Delay of Hundreds of Nanoseconds Pulse Under Different du/dt for mm Gaps

The characteristics, breakdown probability, and statistical distribution of breakdown time delay under different du/dt in hundreds of nanoseconds pulse for millimeter gaps have been investigated by employing the statistical experimental method in this paper. The experimental results indicate that both the breakdown time delay and jitter are essentially decreased as the slope of the pulse voltage- du/dt is increased for 1-, 2-, and 4-mm gaps; in particular, increasing the value of du/dt is useful to obtain the smaller relative deviation of breakdown time delay under the same breakdown electric field. The breakdown probabilities for different gaps have been analyzed and a method of utilizing the Gaussian distribution function has been proposed which can be used for evaluating the statistical distribution of breakdown time delay. When the experimental condition is 100% breakdown probability, the breakdown time delay follows a Gaussian distribution. However, it is unsuitable for the fitting of breakdown time delay utilizing a Gaussian function for 2- and 4-mm gaps from the cumulative probability distributions of breakdown time delay because of the lower du/dt values and breakdown probabilities.