Compact, Portable Pulsed Power Lessons Learned and Quo Vadis

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has supported two consortia to perform basic research leading to compact, portable pulsed power under the auspices of the DoD MURI program. This talk will review the achievements of the consortium led by the University of New Mexico. Over the past 5 years this consortium has focused on research topics that impact four basic elements of pulsed power: architecture, switching, increased energy density storage, and thermal management. A lot of the focus of the research pertinent to these areas has been on liquid and solid dielectric breakdown. Although considerable understanding has been achieved through our studies of these topics, some aspects continue to baffle us. In addition to highlighting the various achievements, this talk will discuss some of the open questions that still remain