A Compact 100-PPS High-Voltage Trigger Pulse Generator

Innovative design of a compact 100-pulses-per-second high-voltage trigger pulse generator, based on an incorporated structure with a curled parallel-plate capacitor and a spiral-strip pulse transformer, is presented. The repetitive trigger pulse generator was developed to trigger a trigatron, which has been used to pulse a 500-kV intense electron beam accelerator (IEBA). The trigger pulse generator consists of a spiral-strip transformer, a curled parallel-plate capacitor, two sharpening spark gaps, a repetitive controlling module, and a charging module. The generator system was designed based on the circuit theory and the electromagnetic theory. Experimental results show that the trigger pulse generator can deliver a 100-kV pulse with 80-ns rise time and 200-ns duration of full-width at half-maximum at a maximum repetition rate of 100 Hz. Due to its good stability, compact structure, and low cost, the high-voltage trigger pulse generator is an excellent candidate to trigger the IEBA system.