New isolated gate bipolar transistor two-quadrant chopper power supply for a fast field cycling nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer

Abstract

This work, presents, for the first time, an Isolated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) two-quadrant chopper power supply for a fast field cycling (FFC) nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. This power supply was designed to achieve a maximum current of 200 A with good efficiency, low semiconductor losses, low cost, and easy maintenance. Both energy storage circuits and dumping circuits are used to obtain switching times less than 2 ms between field levels in agreement with the FFC technique specifications. The current ripple at high currents is better than 1×10−4 and presents a specific shape which can be used for additional compensation using auxiliary circuits. The implemented power supply was tested and been continuously operating with a home-built FFC solenoidal magnet, associated cooling system, and rf units for fields between 0 and 0.2 T.