Vacuum electrical breakdown conditioning study in a parallel plate electrode pulsed dc system

Conditioning of a metal structure in a high-voltage system is the progressive development of resistance to vacuum arcing over the operational life of the system. This is, for instance, seen during the initial operation of radio frequency (rf) cavities in particle accelerators. It is a relevant topic for any technology where breakdown limits performance and where conditioning continues for a significant duration of system run time. Projected future linear accelerators require structures with accelerating gradients of up to 100  MV/m. Currently, this performance level is achievable only after a multimonth conditioning period. In this work, a pulsed dc system applying voltage pulses over paral…