Method to determine the voltage coefficient of a dc high-voltage divider

A binary step-up method has been used to determine the voltage coefficient of a high-voltage (HV) resistive divider, namely of its HV resistor. The method supports an accurate traceability link of a DC HV standard to an established DC low voltage standard. The range of the applied voltage and the accuracy of the measurement are only limited by the stability of the HV source and of the divider under test. A preliminary demonstration of the voltage coefficient measurement for two HV dividers, each consisting of a 100-M/spl Omega/ HV resistor and 10-k/spl Omega/ output resistor, shows the possibility of obtaining the voltage coefficient with an uncertainty of approximately 1/spl times/10/sup -7/ kV/sup -1/ for voltages up to 50 kV, even if the HV source has poor stability.