Subnanosecond corona inception in an ultrawideband environment

Corona discharges in ultrawideband radiating systems can have adverse effects on performance such as reflection, phase dispersion, and significant power losses. A test-bed has been assembled to experimentally observe corona created by voltage pulses similar to ultrawideband systems. The current work involves the attenuation of an incident pulse after propagation through a self-initiated corona and relative measurements of visible light emission from the photoionization produced during streamer development. Several gas dielectrics, including ambient air, N/sub 2/, H/sub 2/, and SF/sub 6/, were tested.