Voltage and current measurements on high power self-magnetically insulated vacuum transmission lines

Experimental corroboration of a variety of distinct measurement techniques for determining the voltage and current constituents at a vacuum diode termination of a high power (500 GW) vacuum transmission line operating in a self-magnetic-insulation regime is presented. The inherent difficulties of measuring driver and load parameters with electric field strengths in excess of 106 V/cm and vacuum electron flows comparable with the cathode conduction current have in the past been addressed by single nonverified measurement methods. In this work we perform multiple measurements and find agreement between B-dot and self-integrating Rogowski coil current diagnostics and consistency among the following voltage measurements: an equilibrium flow model calculation based on current flows, a time-resolved Thomson parabola, a resistive voltage monitor, a time-integrating Thomson parabola, and a Rutherford scattering time-of-flight system.