Numerical Studies of Dielectric Breakdown during High-Power Operation Based on SETD Method

Under the high-power microwave (HPM) field irradiation, bound charges can break free and a part of an insulator becomes electrically conductive, which may lead to dielectric breakdown. In this paper, a dielectric breakdown process is controlled by three-dimensional (3D) full-wave Maxwell's equations. The conductivity model of the nonlinear change caused by HPM irradiation is embedded into the Maxwell' equations, which makes its nonlinear. The SETD method with fixed-point and leapfrog iteration is hired to solve nonlinear equation. The numerical results show that physical mechanism of dielectric breakdown and nonlinear effect can be captured accurately during HPM propagation. Our research is beneficial for the HPM devices protection.