Effect of electrode polarity on wire explosion in vacuum

This paper presents experimental results on electrical explosions of thin tungsten wires at wire currents of 0.04-0.4 kA and current rise times of several tens of nanoseconds. The experiment was performed for both negative and positive polarity of the high-voltage electrode. In addition to conventional current and voltage measurements, the current to a grounded cylindrical collector placed between the exploded wire and the return conductor was measured. The collector current was observed only for a 6 mu m wire exploded with the high-voltage electrode being at a negative potential. In all other test modes (a 6 mu m wire exploded with electrode positive polarity, 6 mu m wire exploded with electrodes enclosed in ceramic tubes, 30 mu m wires exploded with electrode negative and positive polarities) no collector current was detected. A model of the discharge initiation during a wire explosion (WE) in vacuum has been proposed which is based on the supposition that a surface discharge develops over the electrodes. The presence of plasma-emitted electrons at the cathode surface makes it possible to interpret the experimental results on WEs at different electrode polarities reported both in this paper and in previous publications. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.