An electric field sensor with double-layer floating structure for measurement of dc synthetic field coupled with ion flow
Electric field measurements have a wide range of applications in many fields. But for ion flow close to high-voltage DC (HVDC) transmission lines, the current measurements are invalid. This paper for the first time presents a novel electric field sensor (EFS) with double-layer floating structure to measure the target electric fields (DC synthetic fields) that are strongly coupled with ion flow. The theoretical analysis, fabrication process and test results, are presented respectively. The general electric field-Ein consists of three parts: E0 is the DC synthetic field, E1 stands for the field generated by charges attached on the top metal and E2 represents the electric field induced by the redistribution of ion flow. For given two distances to the top metal, the results show that E0 remains unchanged and E1 will increase linearly with the increasing of surface charge density on the top metal. Using the proposed analytic equation, there exists a relative ratio-λ keeping constant with the increasing of surface charge density on the top metal. The novel EFS can address the challenge in measuring the DC electric field coupled with ion flow close to HVDC transmission lines.