New Standard of Electric Field Strength

A new technique is presented for establishing a standard of electric field strength using a highly conducting sphere. An analysis is made to determine the current on the sphere as a function of the electric field strength of an incident plane wave. A method of measuring that current using electronic circuitry and an optical indicator within the sphere is described, and an intercomparison is made with an independent field-strength standard. This technique is a significant improvement over previous ones in that it permits the absolute determination of field strength with a maximum uncertainty of 1 percent or less at 30 MHz and is applicable to a broad range of frequencies and field strengths.