Breakdown voltage reliability improvement in gas-discharge tube surge protectors employing graphite field emitters
| Autor: | Robert Rozman, Marko Žumer, Vincenc Nemanič, Bojan Zajec |
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| Rok vydání: | 2012 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Applied Physics. 111:083301 |
| ISSN: | 1089-7550 0021-8979 |
| DOI: | 10.1063/1.4704699 |
| Popis: | Gas-discharge tube (GDT) surge protectors are known for many decades as passive units used in low-voltage telecom networks for protection of electrical components from transient over-voltages (discharging) such as lightning. Unreliability of the mean turn-on DC breakdown voltage and the run-to-run variability has been overcome successfully in the past by adding, for example, a radioactive source inside the tube. Radioisotopes provide a constant low level of free electrons, which trigger the breakdown. In the last decades, any concept using environmentally harmful compounds is not acceptable anymore and new solutions were searched. In our application, a cold field electron emitter source is used as the trigger for the gas discharge but with no activating compound on the two main electrodes. The patent literature describes in details the implementation of the so-called trigger wires (auxiliary electrodes) made of graphite, placed in between the two main electrodes, but no physical explanation has been given... |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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