Breakdown characteristics of niobate glass-ceramic under pulsed condition

On the road to the portable pulsed power generators, application of the ceramic capable of high energy density in energy storage for pulse forming line has aroused great enthusiasm in the research group of pulsed power technology. The niobate glassceramic investigated in this paper is promising for applications in parallel-plate, stacked Blumleins, which represents an alternative to achieve the required compactness for portable devices. Experiments for testing its breakdown characteristics have been performed on the platform named ARC-01 with the ability to output repetitive pulses. A circuit simulation with the same parameters of the testing platform has been presented to predict the output pulse of the test. Test of breakdown characteristics under repetitively pulsed condition with various frequencies and pulse numbers has been carried out. The results indicate that the configuration design of the electrode has a significant effect on the performance of the ceramic breakdown strength. To eliminate the electric-field (E-field) enhancement points and find an optimized configuration of the electrode, some different electrodes have been studied. The influence of the testing environment has also been investigated with different dielectrics, i.e. air, transformer oil, and glycerin. Based on the testing results of breakdown properties and static simulations, the design of a 2-stage parallel-plate, stacked Blumlein is presented.