Instabilities of prebreakdown currents in vacuum I: late breakdowns

Abstract

Prebreakdown electron emission between extended metal electrodes is experimentally studied with time resolution of 100 ns. Switching to higher emission levels is observed and could be provoked by mechanical shocks. This is found to be analogous to spontaneous switching effects. Elementary time constants of current jumps are 1-3 µs while the whole switching process lasts up to 40 ms, thus ruling out impact of macroparticles. The breakdown voltage is found to be correlated with the emission level. Therefore, switching on electron emission can explain breakdowns with delay times >1 ms. Still longer times are found at the deposition of metal vapour plasma originating from neighbouring arc gaps. In some cases, transient increases of the emission occur that last several seconds. Therefore, in vacuum interrupters late breakdowns after current zero can be caused by mechanical shocks without particle impact and also by deposition of residual vapour at the cathode.