An Investigation into the Ablation and Deposition Phenomena of Carbon Film based Triggered Vacuum Gaps

Large impulses of electrical power are required by various civil, industrial, and military
applications; these include lasers, fusion power generators, radar systems, lightning
simulators, pulse welders, and x-ray machines as well as many others. Providing the
desired electric pulses is a challenge as the common power generation methods
cannot supply such rapidly spiking impulses (especially in systems isolated away from
the electrical grid). In practice, the most common method for generating the pulses is
to store electrical energy over a long period of time, and then release all of the stored
energy in a very short period of time. The electrical storage used is usually specialist
ceramic capacitors as most other types of capacitors and batteries will be damaged by
large and rapidly transient voltages and currents.