Design, Simulation, and Fabrication of a 500 kV Ultrawideband Coaxial Matched Load and Its Connectors for Fast Transient Pulse Measurement Systems

In the past few decades, Pulsed Power (PP) has been one of the fastest growing technologies, with more and more systems frequently emerging in domains such as civil, medical and military. These systems are based on high-voltage pulses, up to several hundreds of kilovolts, with temporal parameters ranging from microsecond levels to sub-nanosecond levels. One of the biggest challenges in this technology is the accurate and precise measurement of the generated PP. The PP measurement systems must possess high-voltage and wideband properties simultaneously, which is often conflicting. The central elements of a PP measurement system are a voltage divider and a termination load. The work presented in this article is dedicated to the second element of the PP measurement system. This paper describes the development of a 50 Ω coaxial termination load and its connectors for a high power ultrawideband (UWB) pulse measurement systems. The principle roles of these devices are to serve as a dummy matched load for the former and to facilitate the connections between different components of the pulse measurement system for the latter. These devices are designed to withstand pulse voltage amplitudes at least up to 500 kV with temporal parameters, such as rise time and pulse duration, varying from nanosecond to sub-nanosecond ranges. The main challenge in the development of a high-voltage UWB termination load is the tradeoff between the high-voltage and wideband characteristics, both of them requiring opposite dimensional aspects for the load device. This challenge is overcame by the special exponential geometry of the load device. The design employs a 30 cm long low-inductance tubular ceramic 50 Ω resistor, enclosed in a critically dimensioned shielding conductor of an exponential inner profile. This shrinking coaxial structure makes it possible to maintain a good level of matching all along the 50 Ω load. The results obtained through 3D electromagnetic modeling and vector network analyzer measurements show good agreement and confirm the reflection coefficient below −27 dB up to at least 2.5 GHz for the load device. Moreover, calculations demonstrate that the load device is very well adapted for nanosecond and sub-nanosecond pulses with voltage peaks as high as 500 kV. These results demonstrate the high-voltage and UWB properties of the developed load device and prove the utilization of this device in the measurement systems for the accurate and precise measurements of the PP.