Solid-State Pulsed Power Generator Based on Blumlein PFN Using Saturable Pulse Transformer

A solid-state pulsed power generator has been developed. It is based on Blumlein pulse forming network (PFN) combined with saturable pulse transformer (SPT). The primary circuit is switched by a switching unit consisting of three MOS-gated thyristors connected in parallel. The SPT functions both as a transformer to increase the voltage and as a closing switch for the secondary circuit. The PFN on the secondary side is charged by the transformer and switched by the SPT so that a pulsed output is generated on a matched load. In the demonstration experiment using one module, an output with peak voltage of ~10.4 kV and pulsewidth of ~160 ns was obtained on a resistive load of <tex-math notation="LaTeX">52~Ω </tex-math> . Furthermore, three identical modules, sharing a common primary circuit, have been connected in series to demonstrate voltage adding, where a peak output voltage of ~30 kV was obtained on a load of <tex-math notation="LaTeX">156~Ω </tex-math> with energy efficiency of ~54 %. This pulsed power generator has been tested at repetition rate of 20 kHz in burst mode.