Materials and Designs for Compact High-Voltage Vacuum Insulator Interfaces

ABSTRACT:Diversified Technologies, Inc. proposes to develop a compact, strong, manufacturable, and inexpensive high voltage insulator for pulse applications, with improved flashover voltage standoff characteristics vs. the present state of the art. To do this, we propose to use the non-linear characteristics of commercially-available material compositions that show varistor-like dependence of resistivity with applied voltage to grade the electrical fields and disperse the bound surface charges responsible for lowered flashover voltage across bridging insulator material surfaces. In what follows, the breakdown mechanisms typically responsible for flashover will be discussed, together with the insulator construction intended to counter them, and show how a practical flashover-resistant high voltage insulator can be configured from available non-linear-resistivity materials.BENEFIT:This SBIR seeks to implement a significant size reduction in high voltage insulators used in military systems, accelerators, and various industrial, and commercial applications of high voltage pulse power.