Investigation of voltage-current characteristics of ZnO varistors under 8/20µs impulse current

Author

Sun, Wei ; Li, Yong ; Zeng, Dasheng ; Cai, Runqiang ; Yang, Guoqing ; Meng, Zhenglin

Author_Institution

State Key Lab. of Electr. Insulation & Power Equip., Xi´´an Jiaotong Univ., Xi´´an, China

Volume

2

fYear

2011

fDate

8-9 Sept. 2011

Firstpage

331

Lastpage

334

Abstract

Voltage-current profiles of ZnO varistors are important electrical characteristics to denote its surge suppression capabilities. A kind of commercial low-voltage ZnO varistors was studied under impulse current. As an 8/20μs inductive lightning current pass through it, it can be observed that in a whole voltage-current curve the current rising track does not overlap the current falling track accurately, and the former is always higher than the later. This phenomenon can be inferred to relate with the transition conduction process of ZnO varistor, and it can be explained qualitatively by hole-induced tunnel breakdown theory.

Keywords

II-VI semiconductors; electric breakdown; low-power electronics; surge protection; varistors; wide band gap semiconductors; zinc compounds; ZnO; hole-induced tunnel breakdown; impulse current; inductive lightning current; low-voltage ZnO varistors; surge suppression; time 20 mus; time 8 mus; transition conduction; voltage-current characteristics; Breakdown voltage; Current measurement; Steady-state; Varistors; Voltage control; Voltage measurement; Zinc oxide; Impulse current; Tunnel breakdown; Voltage-current characteristics; ZnO;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Engineering and Automation Conference (PEAM), 2011 IEEE

Conference_Location

Wuhan

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9691-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PEAM.2011.6135089

Filename

6135089