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Voltage in a coaxial cable is measured by an electric-field optical fiber sensor exploiting the proportionality of voltage and electric field in a fixed structure. The sensor is inserted in a hole drilled through the dielectric of the RG-218 coaxial cable and sealed with epoxy to displace all air and prevent the adverse effects of charge buildup during high-voltage measurements. It is shown that the presence of the sensor in the coaxial cable does not significantly increase electrical reflections in the cable. A slab-coupled optical fiber sensor (SCOS) is used for its compact size and dielectric make. The dynamic range of 50 dB is shown experimentally with detection of signals as low as 1 V and up to 157 kV. A low corner of 0.3 Hz is demonstrated and the SCOS is shown to be able to measure 90 ns rise time.

Electric arcs are a form of electric discharge through a non-conductive media caused by a high electric potential between two points. The timing of this discharge serves as an important parameter in high pulse power applications and a short discharge time is often desirable. We put together a circuit which operates on the principle of inducing a high voltage pulse on an ignition coil controlled by a MOSFET. Slab coupled optical sensor (SCOS) technology was used to characterize arc dynamics such as the discharge time, charge time, slope of the discharge, and effects of changing spark gap distance. In triggering the spark gap, we were able to characterize the discharge of pulses with times between 100 ms and 170 ns.