Design aspects of 13.56MHz, 1kW, CW-RF oscillator for plasma production

Abstract

RF produced plasma has many applications in plasma processing and also it is useful in studying the fundamental characteristics of the plasma. A 1KW RF Hartley oscillator is designed and tested at 13.56 MHz. This has been built at RF section of Institute for Plasma Research by using EIMAC (3CX1200A7) triode tube. The RF source is operated in the grounded cathode mode. Triode 3CX1200A7 is operated in class AB and the feedback is Cathode grounded. The tube has sufficient margin in terms of plate dissipation and Grid dissipation that makes it suitable to withstand momentarily load mismatch. To optimize the RF source along with HVDC power supply many mechanical and electrical aspects have been thought of to enhance the overall quality of the system. This source mainly has three sections (The RF section, HVDC Power supply and soft start Filament Power supply). The system is compact and is housed in a 80 cm × 60 cm × 1800 cm aluminum panel. This paper describes the specifications, design criteria, circuit used, operating parameters of 1KW Oscillator along with HVDC power supply with necessary interlocks, tests conducted and results obtained of this 1 KW grounded grid Hartley Oscillator on 50 ohm dummy load. This system has been tested for 8 hours of continuous operation without any appreciable deterioration of the RF output power. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.