Development of a GW-Level Solid-State Long Pulse Generator

Abstract

Solid-state pulsed power systems are characterized by high repeatability, high reliability, long lifetime, free maintenance, and easy usage. Such systems with moderate peak power (100-MW level) are widely applied in the high average power region; however, many issues are still to be researched to obtain GW-level peak power. In this paper, a high power solid-state pulse generator delivering a GW-level quasi-rectangle pulse is developed to investigate the electrical characteristics of the generator: 1) the system design is accomplished based on a reasonable setting of a power compression ratio combining semiconductor switches and magnetic switches and verified via circuit simulation; 2) key technologies such as serially connected thyristor switches, magnetic pulse compressor (MPC), Blumlein type low impedance pulse forming network (LIPFN), and induction voltage adder (IVA) are investigated for subsystem construction; and 3) at present, the experimental results achieved on a dummy load are a peak pulsed power of 5.2 GW, a pulsewidth of 170 ns, a repetitive rate of 20 Hz, and an operation time of 5 s with good waveform repeatability. The generator can be potentially applied for high power microwave (HPM) generation, X-ray sources, and industrial applications such as material surface treatment and pulse electric field (PEF) sterilization.