Studies of the Propagation of Short Burst, High Power Microwave Radiation through Neutral and Ionized Media

摘要

Experiments were completed on the propagation of very high power (500 kw/cmsq), short burst (3-30 ms) microwaves through a neutral media. Results indicate that breakdown field strengths are about a factor of two higher when the test cell is shielded from x rays generated by the microwave source. Standard theoretical models were shown to give very accurate predictions of actual observations for all cases except when the RF frequency was near the plasma frequency. Keywords: Earth atmosphere, Microwave transmission, Burst transmission, Breakdown electron threshold, Electromagnetic shielding, Microwave pulses, Large orbit gyrotrons, Plasmas physics, Air. (EDC)