A compact capacitive probe for high-voltage diagnostic in Z-pinches.

A capacitive divider was arranged on Qiangguang pulsed power generator during a series of wire-array Z-pinch experiments. This divider was designed to measure the voltage acted on the gap of the cathode and anode boards. The probe has a compact construction and is conveniently assembled on the facility. It is also a cheap voltage probe and easy to build by research groups. The probe can monitor a 1 MV high voltage with a 100 ns rise time. The calibration results showed that the probe had an attenuation ratio of 3.3 × 10(5) and a response time less than 5 ns. The uncertainty was estimated to be 3%.