An Improved High Voltage Pulse Generator With Few Nanoseconds Based on the Synergy of DOS and LTD Topologies for Supra Electroporation

Abstract

Supra electroporation, also known as nanoelectroporation, induced by nanosecond pulse could increase organelle membrane permeability with negligible effect on cell membrane, which has been used for tumor treatment through immunogenic cell death. In order to investigate the supra electroporation of organelle membrane, this study proposes a new topology to generate high voltage pulse with few nanoseconds. This circuit topology contains two main stages: firstly, the topology of diode opening switch (DOS) with LC resonance boosting is used to generate few nanoseconds pulse. Secondly, for improving the output/input voltage gain, four DOS modules are optimally connected (two modules in parallel and another two modules in series) using linear transformer driver (LTD) structure. Moreover, the turn-ON time of MOSFET switch and the inductance of LTD windings are optimized to further boost the voltage amplitude. Finally, experimental results validate the functionality of the proposed topology. The output/input voltage gain can reach 24. This generator can output the nanosecond pulses with full width half maximum (FWHM) of 5.1 ns, amplitude of 3.7 kV (input voltage is 0.15 kV), and repetition frequency up to MHz with unipolar and bipolar polarity in burst mode.