Full voltage effect at the pulse increasing of vacuum insulation electric strength [insulation pulse conditioning]

In this paper, the full voltage effect, influencing electrode pulse processing efficiency in a vacuum, is estimated. With a simultaneous reduction of pulse duration and gap length, the processing is accompanied by a reduction of field amplification factor on the cathode surface microinhomogeneities of more than two orders of magnitude in comparison with long influence voltage and centimeter gaps, at the expense of both pulse capacity increase and the full complete voltage effect. In comparison with long influence voltage at the same gap length, the pulse processing provides additional increase of cathode surface quality at the expense of pulse capacity increase, which reaches 40/spl times/ in micron gaps using subnanosecond duration pulses.