A Solid-State Pulse Adder for High-Voltage Short Pulses and Low-Voltage Long Pulses

Abstract

The synergistic effect of high-voltage short pulses and low-voltage long pulse on cell electroporation can expand the tissue ablation area and enhance the irreversible electroporation effect. To meet the requirements of electroporation for pulse waveform, this article proposes a pulse generator which can output high-voltage short pulses and low-voltage long pulses cooperatively. The generator only uses one resonant power supply and uses magnetic rings with separate windings to control different charging voltages. The structure is relatively simple, and the output waveform can meet the experimental requirements. Finally, a prototype is built, in which the main circuit includes 14 switch tubes and 14 spring mud capacitors. The whole system can generate high-voltage short pulses with amplitude of 0–3 kV, a pulsewidth of 1– <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$4 ~\mu \text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> , and low-voltage long pulses with amplitude of 0–1 kV, a pulsewidth of 30– <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$150 ~\mu \text{s}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> . The delay between high voltage pulses and low voltage pulses is adjustable. At the same time through the control of driving timing, a seven-level step wave with amplitude of 2 kV can be generated.