Process of Surface Flashover in Vacuum Under Nanosecond Pulse

In a wide variety of high-power pulsed devices, vacuum surface flashover plays a key role in the system performance. High-speed electrical measurements with temporal resolution in the nanosecond range were employed to measure the flashover characteristics, and high-speed three-frame photography was used to image the flashover channels at different phases along the insulator surface. From these test results, the flashover under nanosecond pulse would experience a process with three typical phases: initial phase, developing phase, and extinguishing phase. Spectra luminosity of the flashover channel is also discussed for better understanding the mechanism of the flashover process.