Re: Conducting through glass

• To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
• Subject: Re: Conducting through glass
• From: "Scott Stephens" <Scott2-at-Mediaone-dot-net> (by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>)
• Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 13:06:32 -0700
• Approved: twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net
• Delivered-To: fixup-tesla-at-pupman-dot-com-at-fixme

I have discharged my Vandegraaff through cold 1/8 glass plate. The spark is
rather unusual. Maybe because of microwave oscillation? Glass might make an
interesting negative resistance oscillator, along the lines of a Gunn or
TRAPAT diode. Was it Edgerton that began his career by proving that
amorphous semiconductor (glass) would work? At any rate, it has a relatively
high loss tangent, and if you overheat it with reactive losses, it might
turn red hot and get even
worse!

Beer bottle-salt water caps won't suffer from this. So there is
avalanche breakdown, resistive/reactive loss, and high-temperature
electrolytic conduction to consider with glass. Maybe even hysterisis loss,
given its high E too.

Scott

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