MOSFET-based high voltage double square-wave pulse generator with an inductive adder configuration

Abstract

This paper presents a fast MOSFET-based solid-state pulse generator for high voltage double square-wave pulses. The generator consists mainly of an inductive adder system stacked of 20 solid-state modules. Each of the modules has 18 power MOSFETs in parallel, which are triggered by individual drive circuits; these drive circuits themselves are synchronously triggered by a signal from avalanche transistors. Our experiments demonstrate that the output pulses with amplitude of 8.1 kV and peak current of about 405 A are available at a load impedance of 20 Ω. The pulse has a double square-wave form with a rise and fall time of 40 ns and 26 ns, respectively and bottom flatness better than 12%. The interval time of the double square-wave pulses can be adjustable by varying the interval time of the trigger pulses.