METHOD FOR EVALUATING FACT OF CATHODIC BREAKDOWN INITIATION MECHANISM OCCURRENCE IN CASE OF VACUUM BREAKDOWN Russian patent published in 2006 - IPC H01J21/00 

FIELD: high-voltage engineering; diagnosing electric vacuum insulation in electronic industry.

SUBSTANCE: proposed method includes following procedures: application of dc voltage to electrodes; evaluation of electric field strength gain across cathode-surface micro-heterogeneities β₁, and measurement of first breakdown voltage U₁; upon occurrence of first breakdown voltage between electrodes is reduced, electric field strength gain across cathode-surface micro-heterogeneities β₂ is evaluated, second breakdown voltage U₂ is measured, and if K_U/K_β = 1 condition is satisfied, where K_β = β₁/ β₂ is relative variation in β factor as result of vacuum gap breakdown; K_U = U₂/U₁ is relative variation in electric strength as result of first breakdown, conclusion is made about occurrence of cathodic breakdown initiation mechanism in vacuum.

EFFECT: enhanced efficiency of proposed method due to eliminating systematic error in measuring absolute values of electric-field micro-strength and critical strength.

1 cl, 2 dwg