A study of DC electrical breakdown in liquid helium through analysis of the empirical breakdown field distributions

N. S. Phan; W. Wei; B. Beaumont; N. Bouman; S. M. Clayton; S. A. Currie; T. M. Ito; J. C. Ramsey; G. M. Seidel

doi:10.1063/5.0037888

A study of DC electrical breakdown in liquid helium through analysis of the empirical breakdown field distributions

N. S. Phan, W. Wei, B. Beaumont, N. Bouman, S. M. Clayton, S. A. Currie, T. M. Ito, J. C. Ramsey, G. M. Seidel

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5 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report results from a study on electrical breakdown in liquid helium using near-uniform-field stainless steel electrodes with a stressed area of ∼ 0.7 cm 2. The distribution of the breakdown field is obtained for temperatures between 1.7 K and 4.0 K, pressures between the saturated vapor pressure and 626 Torr, and with electrodes of different surface polishes. A data-based approach for determining the electrode-surface-area scaling of the breakdown field is presented. The dependence of the breakdown probability on the field strength as extracted from the breakdown field distribution data is used to show that breakdown is a surface phenomenon closely correlated with Fowler-Nordheim field emission from asperities on the cathode. We show that the results from this analysis provide an explanation for the supposed electrode gap-size effect and also allow for a determination of the breakdown-field distribution for arbitrary shaped electrodes. Most importantly, the analysis method presented in this work can be extended to other noble liquids to explore the dependencies for electrical breakdown in those media.

Original language	English
Article number	0037888
Journal	Journal of Applied Physics
Volume	129
Issue number	8
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0037888
State	Published - Feb 28 2021
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This work was supported by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics under Contract Nos. DE-AC52-06NA25396 and 89233218CNA000001 under proposal LANLEEDM (LANL), DE-FG02-ER41042 (NCSU), and DE-AC05-00OR22725 (ORNL) through Los Alamos National Laboratory Integrated Contract Order No. 4000129433 with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In addition, this work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant Nos. 1506451 (Valparaiso) and PHY-1307426 (NCSU). We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Physics and AOT Divisions of Los Alamos National Laboratory. We are also grateful to Vince Cianciolo for his encouragement and support.

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title = "A study of DC electrical breakdown in liquid helium through analysis of the empirical breakdown field distributions",

abstract = "We report results from a study on electrical breakdown in liquid helium using near-uniform-field stainless steel electrodes with a stressed area of ∼ 0.7 cm 2. The distribution of the breakdown field is obtained for temperatures between 1.7 K and 4.0 K, pressures between the saturated vapor pressure and 626 Torr, and with electrodes of different surface polishes. A data-based approach for determining the electrode-surface-area scaling of the breakdown field is presented. The dependence of the breakdown probability on the field strength as extracted from the breakdown field distribution data is used to show that breakdown is a surface phenomenon closely correlated with Fowler-Nordheim field emission from asperities on the cathode. We show that the results from this analysis provide an explanation for the supposed electrode gap-size effect and also allow for a determination of the breakdown-field distribution for arbitrary shaped electrodes. Most importantly, the analysis method presented in this work can be extended to other noble liquids to explore the dependencies for electrical breakdown in those media.",

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AU - Phan, N. S.

AU - Wei, W.

AU - Beaumont, B.

AU - Bouman, N.

AU - Clayton, S. M.

AU - Currie, S. A.

AU - Ito, T. M.

AU - Ramsey, J. C.

AU - Seidel, G. M.

PY - 2021/2/28

Y1 - 2021/2/28

N2 - We report results from a study on electrical breakdown in liquid helium using near-uniform-field stainless steel electrodes with a stressed area of ∼ 0.7 cm 2. The distribution of the breakdown field is obtained for temperatures between 1.7 K and 4.0 K, pressures between the saturated vapor pressure and 626 Torr, and with electrodes of different surface polishes. A data-based approach for determining the electrode-surface-area scaling of the breakdown field is presented. The dependence of the breakdown probability on the field strength as extracted from the breakdown field distribution data is used to show that breakdown is a surface phenomenon closely correlated with Fowler-Nordheim field emission from asperities on the cathode. We show that the results from this analysis provide an explanation for the supposed electrode gap-size effect and also allow for a determination of the breakdown-field distribution for arbitrary shaped electrodes. Most importantly, the analysis method presented in this work can be extended to other noble liquids to explore the dependencies for electrical breakdown in those media.

AB - We report results from a study on electrical breakdown in liquid helium using near-uniform-field stainless steel electrodes with a stressed area of ∼ 0.7 cm 2. The distribution of the breakdown field is obtained for temperatures between 1.7 K and 4.0 K, pressures between the saturated vapor pressure and 626 Torr, and with electrodes of different surface polishes. A data-based approach for determining the electrode-surface-area scaling of the breakdown field is presented. The dependence of the breakdown probability on the field strength as extracted from the breakdown field distribution data is used to show that breakdown is a surface phenomenon closely correlated with Fowler-Nordheim field emission from asperities on the cathode. We show that the results from this analysis provide an explanation for the supposed electrode gap-size effect and also allow for a determination of the breakdown-field distribution for arbitrary shaped electrodes. Most importantly, the analysis method presented in this work can be extended to other noble liquids to explore the dependencies for electrical breakdown in those media.

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A study of DC electrical breakdown in liquid helium through analysis of the empirical breakdown field distributions

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