Electrical breakdown in space-borne microwave equipment

Abstract

An experimental and numerical investigation is made of multipactor discharges in a coaxial waveguide. Particular attention is given to the determination of the multipactor threshold and the distribution of the impact energy of the electrons. Simulations are carried out for different parameters of the secondary emission coefficient of the electrode surfaces. This makes it possible to determine these parameters through a comparison between the numerical and experimental results. The comparison also shows that the observed multipactor is mainly of polyphase (non-resonant) nature and represents a mixture of single- and double-surface multipactor discharges