Experimental investigation on high-current vacuum arc characteristics

The experiments for high-current vacuum arcs were carried out in a vacuum chamber with contact material CuCr25 at different gap distance varied from 3 mm to 15 mm. In this paper, the voltage-current characteristics and influence of shield potential on the arc voltage and also the ion current characteristics are presented at arc current range from 0.6 kA to 7 kA. All results are related to the arc mode when no magnetic field (B=0) and axial magnetic field (B=const) is applied.