Gas breakdown driven by L band short-pulse high-power microwave

High power microwave (HPM) driven gas breakdown is a major factor in limiting the radiation and transmission of HPM. A method that HPM driven gas breakdown could be obtained by changing the aperture of horn antenna is studied in this paper. Changing the effective aperture of horn antenna can adjust the electric field in near field zone, leading to gas breakdown. With this method, measurements of air and SF6 breakdowns are carried out on a magnetically insulated transmission-line oscillators, which is capable of generating HPM with pulse duration of 30 ns, and frequency of 1.74 GHz. The typical breakdown waveforms of air and SF6 are presented. Besides, the breakdown field strengths of the two gases are derived at different pressures. It is found that the effects of air and SF6 breakdown on the transmission of HPM are different: air breakdown mainly shortens the pulse width of HPM while SF6 breakdown mainly reduces the peak output power of HPM. The electric field threshold of SF6 is about 2.4 times larger than that of air. These differences suggest that gas properties have a great effect on the transmission characteristic of HPM in gases. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4768220]