Under direction from the DOE Office of Electricity, Sandia National Laboratories performed testing of the Viziv system to evaluate the quality of the Zenneck surface wave and potential application to long range power transfer. This report documents the test methodology as well as the test results. This includes an analysis of prior test data collected by Viziv.
Development of a radioimaging diagnostic for high-voltage component reliability testing and electrical breakdown computational model validation is described. Radioimaging has its roots in radio astronomy, where aperture synthesis (also known as synthesis imaging) has been utilized for decades to image radio sources far from Earth. Radioimaging as described herein, in contrast, seeks to image radio sources in close proximity to its receivers (i.e., in a laboratory environment). Here it is shown that corona discharge, a non-destructive precursor to catastrophic (thermal) arc discharge, electromagnetically radiates strongly within a 250 kHz – 2.5 GHz bandwidth, and is readily detected and located by postprocessing the received radio signals. The ability of radioimaging to detect both corona and arc discharge (grouped together herein as high voltage breakdown or HVB) makes it a valuable tool for 100% HVB detection in materials, components, and devices, and has the ability to indicate electrical weakness (via corona detection) prior to a destructive arc discharge event. Radioimaging enables HVB to be located both internal and external to dielectric components under test in near-real-time, with multiple and/or extended HVB events located simultaneously. In contrast, existing non-destructive diagnostics (at the time of this writing) either indicate electrical breakdown without resolving failure locations (e.g., current, voltage, and chemical measurements), locate external HVB (e.g., high-speed optical and ultraviolet (UV) measurements or photography), or locate both external and internal HVB but with low fidelity (e.g., a single HVB source can be located by existing time-of-arrival (TOA) UHF or acoustic emissions). Radioimaging instead creates a sequence of high-fidelity images similar to an optical high-speed camera but at radiofrequencies (RF), and is not limited to two-dimensions. Moreover, radioimaging has already served one internal and two external industry customers, the results of which are detailed in this report. The radioimaging results described herein were part of a three-year effort funded by the Sandia Lab Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program within the Radiation, Electromagnetic, High Energy Density Science (REHEDS) investment area.
An interferometric radioimager provides real-time, high-fidelity radioimaging of high voltage breakdown (HVB) both internal and external to electrical components at sub-nanosecond and sub-millimeter resolution and has an ability to resolve multiple/spatially-extensive HVB simultaneously. Therefore, radioimaging can be used to screen for early life weakness/failure and enable non-destructive screening of defective electrical components. In particular, radioimaging can detect precursors to catastrophic HVB, allowing for early detection of weakness in critical electrical components. Radioimaging can also be used to track HVB and pinpoint defects in electrical components real time, including transformers, capacitors, cables, switches, and microelectronics.
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Journal of Applied Physics
We report microfabricated surface ion traps are a principal component of many ion-based quantum information science platforms. The operational parameters of these devices are pushed to the edge of their physical capabilities as the experiments strive for increasing performance. When the applied radio-frequency (RF) voltage is increased excessively, the devices can experience damaging electric discharge events known as RF breakdown. We introduce two novel techniques for in situ detection of RF breakdown, which we implemented while characterizing the breakdown threshold of surface ion traps produced at Sandia National Laboratories. In these traps, breakdown did not always occur immediately after increasing the RF voltage, but often minutes or even hours later. This result is surprising in the context of the suggested mechanisms for RF breakdown in vacuum. Additionally, the extent of visible damage caused by breakdown events increased with the applied voltage. To minimize the probability for damage when RF power is first applied to a device, our results strongly suggest that the voltage should be ramped up over the course of several hours and monitored for breakdown.
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