A new solid-state LC-Marx generator based on saturable pulse transformer

Rev Sci Instrum. 2021 May 1;92(5):054712. doi: 10.1063/5.0039117.

Abstract

The saturable pulse transformer (SPT) and six stage LC-Marx generator are proposed in this solid-state system. In the experiments, the output voltage of 14.5 kV and the rise time of 720 ns are achieved when the isolation inductance is 35 µH and the primary capacitor is charged to 350 V. The output voltage is 4.1 times larger than the charging voltage on the single capacitor. For larger output voltage and shorter rise time, isolation inductance is changed with the high-voltage silicon stack, which is a kind of rectifier diode consisting of several diodes enclosed in the resin with larger inverse voltage. In the same experiment condition, the output voltage is increased to 17.5 kV, which is 5.0 times larger than the voltage on the charging capacitor. The rise time gets down to 500 ns. The results show that the high-voltage silicon stack can further enhance the working performance of the SPT LC-Marx generator on the output voltage and rise time. Finally, experiments are carried out to test the working performance of the SPT LC-Marx generator at a repetitive frequency. The results show that the output voltage reaches 12 kV, which proves that the generator can work stably at 1 Hz.