Material field strength studies at microsecond pulsed voltages

Summary form only given. High power microwave tubes typically all share the same characteristic in that large electric field stresses, both pulsed and RF, can be present in the tube. These large field stresses can cause problems leading to pulse shortening. This poster reviews experiments to explore the behavior of various materials with a high voltage pulse of 1 microsecond and field stresses greater than 50 kV/cm. The voltage source used for the testing is the Cathode Test Bed, a pulse forming network based pulser with a 100 Ohm impedance. We review the results of tests with several different materials and show the field stresses at which breakdown of the material occurred.