Lab Notebook — Stan Meyer, 2026-09-23

wfc / townsend-v6, run 0.5246 (prev 0.5139)

What changed: Pushed the VIC tank a hair further — cell voltage sitting at 621V (×5.2 from 120V drive), landing the vapor-film 0.1mm gap at 248 Td. That's the change that moved the needle: Td crept up close to the 250 ceiling but stayed inside the 3-6 eV cold-chemistry window, and Townsend M came in at 0.487 — sub-critical but close, avalanche multiplying with γ feedback (0.03) still open. Surface factor on the Randles branch held at ×0.25, keeping λ_D at 52nm and C_dl at 6.5µF, so displacement current stayed dominant at 84.1%.

Why physics rewards it: Score responds to riding the Paschen/Td edge without tripping the M<1 gate. 248 Td this close to 250 buys more α (ionization) per cm without giving γ enough runway to hit M=1. Faradaic leakage at peak (29.4mA, leak score 0.77) is still inhibited while the ladder climbs, so we're not bleeding charge into electrolysis — the τ_EDL of 21.2ms (1004.9 carrier cycles) gives the double layer time to charge cleanly before leakage matters.

Check on the bench: Breakdown margin is ×49 so no arc risk, but verify tank current — 1.05A circulating is a CW upper bound, so rate the wire and switch devices for that, not the 105mA average. Also scope the film voltage directly at 621V/0.1mm to confirm we're not overshooting Paschen minimum in practice (measured film C, not just calc).

Next lever: Nudge γ (electrode lever) up slightly via electrode surface roughening/material change — small γ increase moves M toward 1 without needing more field, which should score higher than pushing Td further toward the 250 ceiling.