Analysis of the electrode design to increase the withstand voltage of solid state meander pulse-forming line

Solid dielectrics are attracting lots of interest in the compact, portable pulsed power system. In this paper, the meander pulse forming line fabricated on the glass ceramic is tested under tens kilo-volts. Experimental results show that the glass ceramic substrate can hold off voltage higher than 20 kV. More importantly, the distributions of the breakdown points have regularities, which present the edge effects on the field enhancement at specialized areas. Simulation results also indicate the same phenomena, and a simplified model is built to find ways to decrease the edge effect on the field enhancement. Based on the simulation results of simplified model, two new electrode designs are investigated to the improved withstand voltage performance of thin electrode in solid-state pulse forming line.