Development of a High Voltage Steep-sided Nanosecond Pulse Generator

The surface flashover voltage of the insulator in vacuum is much lower than that of both insulator and the vacuum gap in the same dimension. The critical factor that impacts surface flashover voltage is the accumulation of surface charge which can severely restrict the performance of the vacuum devices. In order to research the distribution of charge on the surface of the insulator under nanosecond pulse in vacuum, a nanosecond pulse generator whose output amplitude and pulse width can be adjusted flexibly and a capacitive divider which is designed for the pulse measurement have been developed in this paper. Considering the required voltage waveform and the insulation strength of test chamber, the rising edge of the nanosecond pulse designed in this paper is about 10ns, the pulse width is about 100ns. The capacitive divider whose divider ratio is 476.45:1 and bandwidth is 56.69MHz can accurately measure the output pulse voltage.