Investigation of Microwave Induced Local Gas Heating in HPM Switching and Protection Using Two-dimensional Computations

HPM-induced plasma plays a significant role in applications such as fast high-power handling switches and power limiters to protect electronic components from HPM attacks. The efficient design requires a lower cutoff time and desired plasma formation. The presence of initial seed electrons and the strength of microwave E-field decide the cutoff time. Localized gas heating can act as a source of breakdown initiation. The work presents a 2D simulation of gas-heating effects on the HPM breakdown-induced plasma. The simulations reveal that gas-heating can result in the plasma bulk having higher effective ionization and a higher effective reduced field to sustain a higher plasma density. Gas heating lowers the neutral count in bulk together, with a high plasma density can provide a better limiter action over a wide frequency range of 1 to 40 GHz. The study highlights a significant reduction in the cutoff time in the order of 100 ns. Thus, providing a faster switching action.