Bubble formation in synthetic insulating liquids in a pulsed divergent electric field

This is a study of high field conduction phenomena in two aromatic insulating liquids (monobenzyltoluene and dibenzyltoluene) in a point-plane electrode geometry. These liquids behave qualitatively like saturated hydrocarbons; current instability (electron avalanche) for high enough fields near the negative point giving rise to a current pulse regime, which causes the formation of bubbles by local heating. The generation and dynamics of these bubbles as a function of various parameters (injected energy, hydrostatic pressure and the nature of the liquid) are presented and discussed