Air Breakdown Characteristics in Rod-Plane Gaps due to Repetitive Nanosecond-Pulses

As to a wide range of pulsed power application, data concerning electrical insulation play a basic role, and breakdown has not been studied in detail for the repetitive nanosecond-pulses conditions. Breakdown characteristics of rod-plane gas gaps were investigated with repetitive burst conditions under variant repetition rates and diverse gap distances respectively. The experimental results show that the polarity dependence is not very distinct. Relations among applied voltage, observational breakdown time lag, number of applied pulses to breakdown, and repetition rates are presented. Excited particles and residual charges formed during the consecutive nanosecond-pulses would present an accumulation effect and affect the development of gas breakdown.