Effect of air and SF₆ breakdown on transmission of high power microwave

By means of changing the effective aperture of horn antenna, the experiment of air and SF6 microwave breakdown is carried out for L-band microwave with pulse duration being 30 ns. The microwave breakdown waveforms are derived, and the effect of air and SF6 breakdown on the transmission of high power microwave is analyzed. The experiment shows that, air breakdown mainly shortens the pulse width of high power microwave, while SF6 breakdown mainly reduces the peak power of high power microwave.