New High Voltage Pulse Generators

Abstract

The use of High Voltage Pulses has found applications in biotechnology, medicine, industrial applications, and food processing and preservation. Biotechnology application includes electro-chemotherapy, gene transfer, electroinsertion of proteins into cell plasma membrane, electrofusion of cells, transdermal drug delivery, water treatment and food. Industrial applications of High Voltage Pulses include the filtering of flue gas particles using electrostatic precipitators, treatment of metal and polymer materials by plasma immersion ion implantation, exciter lasers fabrication, flash radiography or ionization, polarization source in accelerators, insulation testing and so on. Efficiency of all these applications strongly depends on parameters of electric pulses, which are delivered to the treated object using specially developed electrodes and electronic devices. In this paper, the design and structure of high-voltage pulse generator will be described. We have presented most commonly used techniques of signal generation based on various methods such as: Marx cells and spark gaps, MOSFET series and parallel, IGBT, nonlinear capacitor, static induction thyristor, and modular high voltage. Methods of high voltage pulse generators based on various shape of pulse are also presented. Keywords: Marx generator, MOSFET, IGBT, nonlinear capacitor, pulse shaping network, thyristor