Contents I. Introduction
The initiation of gas discharges in helical magnetic flux compression generators (FCGs) was reported in the 1960s [1]. Later [2], [3], it was shown that the gas discharge is not itself a source of magnetic flux loss in the FCG; however, high current densities created by the discharge in the armature and the stator of the FCG increase the rate of flux diffusion into the conductors that causes flux loss in the generator. It was demonstrated [2] that flux loss in FCGs increases about 50% due to this discharge. For the last decades, extensive research efforts targeting the suppression of gas discharge in FCGs were performed. However, none of the well-known techniques used to prevent gas discharge in conventional pulsed power systems (an extended list of references for these techniques can be found in [4]–[6]) had an effect on the development of gas discharge in FCGs.
