Abstract—High voltage pulses are much more difficult to measure precisely because of sensitivity of electrical devices to electromagnetic noise. One commonly used technique to measure high voltage pulses, is the use of Kerr cell containing any optically active material (nitrobenzene in our case). This work is based on optical technique to measure high voltage fast pulses precisely. Optical characteristics of nitrobenzene are exploited to measure the pulses. We have proposed a substitute design of Kerr cell to prevent breakdown in nitrobenzene which causes severe problems in measurement. Kerr cells of different sizes and different types are used in the experiments to measure the high voltage pulses of peak amplitude up to 100kV.

Index Terms—Kerr cell, high voltage, pulse measurement, nitrobenzene, birefringence.

Babar Hussain is with Ph.D. student at Department of ECE, University of North Carolina Charlotte, USA (e-mail: bhussai1@uncc.edu).
Masroor Ikram is with Head Department of Physics and Applied Mathematics, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Islamabad, Pakistan (e-mail: masroor@pieas.edu.pk).
Asif Mehmood is with Senior Scientist, Department of Technical Development, Islamabd, Pakistan (e-mail: asif3172@yahoo.com).