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At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we are developing a new type of accelerator, known as a dielectric wall accelerator, in which compact pulse-forming lines directly apply an accelerating field to the beam through an insulating vacuum boundary. The electrical strength of this insulator may define the maximum gradient achievable in these machines. To increase the system gradient, we use “high-gradient insulators” composed of alternating layers of dielectric and metal for the vacuum insulator. In this paper, we present our recent results from experiment and simulation, including successful testing of a high-gradient insulator in a functioning dielectric wall accelerator cell. Our results indicate that proper high-voltage conditioning of the insulators can delay the onset of flashover, that the observed conditioning consists of both a permanent and a temporary part, and that the insulators’ voltage-holding capability increases with increasing dielectric layer thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electrical strength of vacuum insulators is a key constraint in the design of particle accelerators and pulsed power systems. Vacuum insulating structures assembled from alternating layers of metal and dielectric can result in improved performance compared to conventional insulators, but previous attempts to optimize their design have yielded seemingly inconsistent results. Here, we present two models for the electrical strength of these structures, one assuming failure by vacuum arcing between adjacent metal layers and the other assuming failure by vacuum surface flashover. These models predict scaling laws which are in agreement with the experimental data currently available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-voltage vacuum insulator failure is generally due to surface flashover rather than insulator bulk breakdown. Vacuum surface flashover is widely believed to be initiated by a secondary electron emission avalanche along the vacuum-insulator interface. This process requires a physical mechanism to cause secondary electrons emitted from the insulator surface to return to that surface. Here, it is shown that when an insulator is subjected to a fast high-voltage pulse, the magnetic field due to displacement current through the insulator can provide this mechanism. This indicates the importance of the voltage pulse shape, especially the rise time, in the flashover initiation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]