Cascade Protector for Hardening Electronic Devices against High Power Microwaves

Since the increasing front part of incident microwave pulses may pass through plasma limiter before it generates plasma (the breakdown time of low pressure Xe in plasma limiter is 10 ns), single plasma limiters are not adequate for protecting sensitive electronic components against high power microwaves (HPM). A cascade protector, which consists of a plasma limiter and a PIN limiter in waveguide, is proposed. The numerical results show that under HPM attack (10 GW, 1GHz, and 100 ns pulse width), the microwave power leakage through the cascade protector is about 0.4 W. In the same electromagnetic environment, the power leakage through single plasma limiter is approximate 347 W.