Material Advances and Challenges in Pulse Power System
A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Electronic Materials".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2025 | Viewed by 25
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Pulse power supply plays a critical role in advanced scientific facilities such as laser, inertial confinement fusion reactors, and particle accelerators. However, performance enhancement of the pulse power system faces significant constraints due to material limitations under extreme high-energy-density conditions. Materials for metallic electrodes, energy storage units, and insulators often damage under transient high electric fields, thermal shocks, and plasma interactions, necessitating urgent innovations in material science. This Special Issue focuses on recent breakthroughs in materials research to address these challenges, emphasizing failure mechanisms, novel fabrication strategies, and performance evaluation under pulsed-power conditions. Experimental, theoretical, and computational studies are welcomed, particularly those linking microstructural evolution to macroscopic performance. Submissions should highlight scalable synthesis methods, advanced characterization (e.g., in situ diagnostics), and validation under realistic operational environments. This collection aims to establish a roadmap for next-generation materials that enable higher efficiency, reliability, and compactness in pulse power technologies, thereby accelerating progress in fusion energy, accelerator physics, and related fields.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Metallic Electrodes: ablation mechanisms under pulsed arcs or electron beams, mitigation approaches through surface modification, composite design, etc.;
- Insulating Materials: degradation processes in high-energy-density plasmas, dielectric strength retention, and adaptive insulation solutions;
- Energy Storage Materials: high-capacity, long-lifetime dielectrics for pulsed capacitors, including polymer–ceramic hybrids, nanostructured films, or self-healing materials.
Researchers are warmly invited to publish their original research papers, communications, or review papers in this Special Issue.
Dr. Zhigang Liu
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- metal ablation
- insulator degradation
- energy storage dielectrics
- pulse capacitors
- spark switch
- pulse power
- plasma
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