Voltage Multiplier Circuit Research Articles

High-Voltage Pulsed Power Supply to Generate Wide Pulses Combined With Narrow Pulses

This paper proposes a pulsed power supply topology based on the combination of capacitor-diode voltage multiplier and resonant circuit. It generates high output voltage pulses with low ac input voltage using power electronics switches. Based on the type of application, simple or combined mode pulses can be created by proposed topology. The combined mode pulse (wide pulses combined with narrow pulses) generation can be a very good alternative strategy for food sterilization, which can reduce the amount of consumed power and avoid side effects of wide pulses used in the food treatment process. Simulation and experimental results are presented to verify the proposed topology.

Design of Soft Switching Sepic Converter Fed DC Drive Applications

High efficiency DC-DC converters with high-voltage gain have been researched due to increasing demands. A softswitching single-ended primary inductor converter (SEPIC) is presented in this work. An auxiliary switch and a clamp capacitor are presented in this project. A coupled inductor and an auxiliary inductor are utilized to obtain ripple-free input current and achieve zero voltage-switching (ZVS) operation of the main and auxiliary switches. The voltage multiplier technique and active clamp technique are applied to the conventional SEPIC converter to increase the voltage gain, reduce the voltage stresses of the power switches and diode. Moreover, by utilizing the resonance between the resonant inductor and the capacitor in the voltage multiplier circuit, the zero-current-switching (ZVS) operation of the output diode is achieved and its reverse-recovery loss is significantly reduced. The converter achieves high efficiency due to soft switching commutation of the power semiconductor device. The circuit is simulated using MATLAB Simulink and output result is verified.

Low-Voltage Electroreduction of CO2: A Lesson from Geoelectrochemistry in the Seabed

To date, most research on heterogeneous CO2 electroreduction has been aimed at decreasing the large overpotential required for hydrocarbon synthesis. Specifically, most scientists have focused on reducing the external voltage to as low as 1.24 V, as this value represents the thermodynamic limit for producing organic compounds via CO2 reduction coupled with water oxidation [CO2 + H2O to (CH2O) + O2, where (CH2O) represents a carbohydrate].As an alternative approach, it may be possible to exploit the highly active geoelectrochemical reactions mediated by microorganisms living in deep-sea hydrothermal environments. In such environments, chemolithoautotrophs, as opposed to photoautotrophs, primarily contribute to biomass production through the utilization of geochemical energy sources, such as H2S and H2, emitted from hydrothermal vents. Chemolithoautotrophic bacteria are able to utilize these energy-rich compounds for the production of hydrocarbons at rates that are one order of magnitude higher than that of photosynthesis, and several species can synthesize hydrocarbons using Fe2+ ions as a sole electron source for CO2 reduction. It is worth noting that Fe-oxidizing bacteria utilize the proton-motive force (PMF) generated by the reduction of O2 to H2O to elevate the energy of electrons obtained from Fe2+ oxidation by ~ 1 eV. Thus, although the reversible potential of the Fe3+/Fe2+ redox couple (0.77 V vs SHE) is more positive than that of NAD(P)/NAD(P)H (−0.32 V at pH 7), Fe-oxidizing bacteria are capable of generating NAD(P)H as a source of reductive energy for CO2fixation.By harnessing the ability of Fe-oxidizing bacteria to elevate intracellular electrons into a higher energetic state, it may be possible to construct an integrated bioelectrochemical process in which the bacteria function not only as effective CO2 reduction catalysts, but also as voltage-multiplier circuits. In this system, CO2 reduction would occur at an external voltage that is one order of magnitude lower than that of conventional heterogeneous electrocatalytic systems. The thermodynamic limit of the external voltage required for the simultaneous reduction and oxidation of CO2 and H2O, respectively, is determined by the difference between the reversible potentials of E(O2/H2O) and E(Fe3+/Fe2+). Thus, the thermodynamic limit of the external voltage is estimated to be 0.035 V at pH 7 if 0.77 V is adopted as the redox potential of the Fe3+/Fe2+ couple. Based on these estimated values, the integrated bioelectrochemical process mediated by Fe-oxidizing bacteria can potentially proceed at an external voltage lower than 1.24 V, and thus provide an approach for utilizing the low-voltage electricity generated from hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal sources for the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to chemical fuels.

Research of a New Type Rectifier and Voltage-Multiplier Piezoelectric Energy Harvester Circuit

Traditional rectifier circuit can convert AC to DC, but some disadvantages cant be avoided, such as small output current, high power consumption, low conversion efficiency. This paper designs a new type of rectifier voltage-multiplier circuit named MR_MOS circuit. It uses a low let-through resistance MOS tube to replace the conventional rectifier diode, and adds the voltage-multiplying factor to the synchronous input port. Therefore, it can improve the rectifier effect and increase the output voltage. By the simulation result of Synopsys Saber Platform, it shows that the new type circuit can implement the rectification and voltage-multiplying by the simulating output pulse voltage of nanofiber made in Deakin University as the source of excitation. It can provide the basic theoretical of the piezoelectric energy harvester (PEH) development, and has certain reference significance to the development of piezoelectricity technology.

SOI CMOS Voltage Multiplier Circuits with Body Bias Control Technique for Battery-Less Wireless Sensor System

Voltage multiplier (VM) circuits for RF (2.45GHz)-to-DC conversion are developed for battery-less sensor nodes. Converted DC power is charged on a storage capacitor before driving a wireless sensor module. A charging time of the storage capacitor of the proposed VM circuits is reduced 1/10 of the conventional VM circuits, because they have constant current characteristics owing to self-control of body bias in diode-connected SOI MOSFETs. The wireless sensor system composed of the fabricated VM chip and a commercially available sensor module is operated using an RF signal of a wireless LAN modem (2.45GHz) as a power source.

A Hybrid Symmetrical Voltage Multiplier

Voltage multiplier circuits are widely used in many high-voltage/low-current applications. A conventional symmetrical voltage multiplier (SVM) has much better performance, when compared with its half-wave counterpart. However, it requires a high-voltage transformer (HVT) with center-tapped secondary to perform its push-pull kind of operation. The design of an HVT with center-tapped secondary is relatively complex. This paper proposes a hybrid SVM (HSVM) for dc high-voltage applications. The multiplier is formed by cascading a diode-bridge rectifier and an SVM with diode-bridge rectifier as the first stage of multiplier. The proposed topology saves two high-voltage capacitors and requires only one secondary winding of HVT. Besides, it has lesser voltage drop and faster transient response at start-up, when compared with conventional SVM. The feasibility of the proposed HSVM is validated both by simulation and experimental results of a laboratory scaled-down prototype.

High rectifier output voltages with printed organic charge pump circuit

It is known that in many wireless organic electronic applications the required supply voltage is higher than the accessible signal amplitude. Therefore, voltage multiplier circuits are needed in many cases. We report a gravure printed organic charge pump circuit operating at 13.56MHz suitable for rectified voltage amplification in printed electronic devices. The circuit, consisting of four diodes and four capacitors, has been monolithically printed using only high volume production compatible manufacturing methods. With 10V AC input the output of the circuit at 13.56MHz is 8.4V and 11.8V using 1MΩ and 10MΩ output loads, respectively. At 13.56MHz the output voltage of the charge pump is three times higher than the output of a half-wave rectifier. The results demonstrate the possibility to print efficient high frequency (HF) charge pump circuits to meet the supply voltage requirements of the printed electronic applications.

Energy Harvesting Technique by Using Novel Voltage Multiplier Circuits and Passive Devices

Energy Harvesting Technique by Using Novel Voltage Multiplier Circuits and Passive Devices

Low-voltage electrochemical CO2 reduction by bacterial voltage-multiplier circuits

Using the voltage-multiplying circuits of chemolitho-autotrophic Fe-oxidizing bacteria (Mariprofundus ferrooxydans), we describe an integrated bioelectrochemical system that affords simultaneous CO2 reduction and H2O oxidation at an external voltage of less than 1.24 V.

High-voltage electron cooler project for NICA collider

A high-voltage electron cooling system (ECS) with electron energy reaching 2.5 MeV for the NICA collider is being designed at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The ECS is being developed in correspondence with the available experience in manufacturing similar systems from around the world. The main feature of this design is the use of two cooling electron beams (one beam per collider ring); electrons are accelerated and decelerated by a common high-voltage generator. A conceptual project of high-voltage ECS has been developed. The cooler consists of three tanks filled with SF6 gas under pressure. Two of them contain electron-beam forming systems; each system consists of two electron guns, two electron collectors, and accelerating-decelerating tubes placed in a longitudinal magnetic field generated by a solenoid. The third tank contains a high-voltage generator based on the voltage-multiplying circuit.

Soft-Switching SEPIC Converter With Ripple-Free Input Current

A soft-switching single-ended primary inductor converter (SEPIC) is presented in this paper. An auxiliary switch and a clamp capacitor are connected. A coupled inductor and an auxiliary inductor are utilized to obtain ripple-free input current and achieve zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) operation of the main and auxiliary switches. The voltage multiplier technique and active clamp technique are applied to the conventional SEPIC converter to increase the voltage gain, reduce the voltage stresses of the power switches and diode. Moreover, by utilizing the resonance between the resonant inductor and the capacitor in the voltage multiplier circuit, the zero-current-switching operation of the output diode is achieved and its reverse-recovery loss is significantly reduced. The proposed converter achieves high efficiency due to soft-switching commutations of the power semiconductor devices. The presented theoretical analysis is verified by a prototype of 100 kHz and 80 W converter. Also, the measured efficiency of the proposed converter has reached a value of 94.8% at the maximum output power.

High power factor transformerless single-stage single-phase ac to high-voltage dc converter with voltage multiplier

This study proposes a transformerless single-stage single-phase ac to high-voltage dc converter based on Cockcroft–Walton (CW) voltage-multiplier circuit with only adding one bi-directional switch and one boost inductor. This study also derives a new method of circuit representation for CW voltage multiplier, which simplifies the equivalent circuit and is convenient for simulation. Compared with conventional CW voltage multiplier, the proposed converter provides half-wave symmetry and low-distorted line current, improved power factor at the ac source and a regulated dc output voltage for wide load range. In addition, a current-fed analysis approach is used to derive a general expression of the output voltage ripple as function of the load to facilitate the design of the system parameters. A commercial average-current-control continuous conduction mode power factor correction integrated circuit (IC) is used to implement the control strategy of the proposed converter that does not need the multiplier and sensing of the input ac voltage; this strategy simplifies the design and reduces the control circuit components. A 500 W prototype is built for testing. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed converter.

Improving wake-up receiver's sensitivity by using novel architecture

A new approach for a passive wake-up receiver is presented to improve its sensitivity. This architecture is based on a passive voltage multiplier circuit associated with a Schottky diode rectifier and using an on-off keying modulation for the input radio frequency signal. It is shown that, using this approach, a 10 dB better sensitivity is obtained for the wake-up receiver. Moreover, the immunity of the wake-up receiver to a false wake-up signal is improved.

Design of UHF CMOS Front-ends for Near-field Communications

This paper introduces an efficient voltage multiplier circuit for improved voltage gain and power efficiency of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The multiplier is fully integratable and takes advantage of both passive and active circuits to reduce the required input power while yielding the desired DC voltage. A six-stage voltage multiplier and an ultralow power voltage regulator are designed in a 0.13 μm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor process for 2.45 GHz RFID applications. The minimum required input power for a 1.2 V supply voltage in the case of a 50 Ω antenna is -20.45 dBm. The efficiency is 15.95% for a 1 MΩ load. The regulator consumes 129 nW DC power and maintains the reference voltage in a 1.1% range with V dd varying from 0.8 to 2 V. The power supply noise rejection of the regulator is 42 dB near a 2.45 GHz frequency and performs better than -32 dB from 100 Hz to 10 GHz frequencies.

A Voltage-Multiplying Self-Powered AC/DC Converter with 0.35-V Minimum Input Voltage for Energy Harvesting Applications

This paper demonstrates a highly efficient, low-voltage ac/dc converter using a voltage multiplier (octupler) circuit architecture intended for vibrational energy harvesting applications where a low-voltage ac waveform is used to charge a battery. The circuit employs output-powered active diodes and does not require any external power supply or startup circuitry. The circuit rectifies and boosts input ac voltages in the range of 0.35-2 V and 20-500 Hz to a dc voltage output, that is, ~8 times higher than the input amplitude. The circuit can cold start from an input voltage of 0.5 V or higher, providing an output voltage sufficient to charge a 3.7-V lithium ion battery. Once started, the circuit can maintain operation at input voltage amplitudes as low as 0.35 V. Over 80% efficiency is achieved from 20 to 100 Hz, with output power ranging from a few microwatts to 1 mW. Furthermore, in testing with an actual electrodynamic (magnetic) vibrational energy harvester that generates >;0.5-V ac output, the circuit delivers power to a lithium ion battery with an efficiency of >;80%.

Very low power, high voltage base for a Photo Multiplier Tube for the KM3NeT deep sea neutrino telescope

The described system is developed in the framework of a deep-sea submerged Very Large Volume neutrino Telescope where photons are detected by a large number of Photo Multiplier Tubes. These PMTs are placed in optical modules (OM). A basic Cockcroft-Walton (CW) voltage multiplier circuit design is used to generate multiple voltages to drive the dynodes of the photomultiplier tube. To achieve a long lifetime and a high reliability the dissipation in the OM must be kept to the minimum. The design is also constrained by size restrictions, load current, voltage range, and the maximum allowable ripple in the output voltage. A surface mount PMT-base PCB prototype is designed and successfully tested. The system draws less than 1.5 mA of supply current at a voltage of 3.3 V with outputs up to -1400 Vdc cathode voltage, a factor 10 less than the commercially available state of the art.

A DC Voltage-Multiplier Circuit Working as a High-Voltage Pulse Generator

The intensive use of semiconductor devices enabled the development of a repetitive high-voltage pulse-generator topology from the dc voltage-multiplier (VM) concept. The proposed circuit is based on an odd VM-type circuit, where a number of dc capacitors share a common connection with different voltage ratings in each one, and the output voltage comes from a single capacitor. Standard VM rectifier and coupling diodes are used for charging the energy-storing capacitors, from an ac power supply, and two additional on/off semiconductors in each stage, to switch from the typical charging VM mode to a pulse mode with the dc energy-storing capacitors connected in series with the load. Results from a 2-kV experimental prototype with three stages, delivering a 10- s pulse with a 5-kHz repetition rate into a resistive load, are discussed. Additionally, the proposed circuit is compared against the solid-state Marx generator topology for the same peak input and output voltages.

A Miniature Energy Harvesting Device for Wireless Sensors in Electric Power System

A novel energy harvesting device called the energy coupler is proposed which can provide power to small wireless sensors in a power system. The energy coupler when coupled electromagnetically to a nearby current carrying conductor scavenges ac power from the conductor. The proposed energy coupler converts the harvested ac power into dc using a passive voltage multiplier circuit. The design of the energy coupler is such that the dc power obtained is adequate to charge a miniature 1.2-V rechargeable battery. It is demonstrated that the energy coupler is capable of delivering 10 mW of dc power to a 50-Ω load. An analytical model is also presented which agrees well with measurement results within a margin of error of 10%.

A dual-mode phase-shift modulation control scheme for voltage multiplier based X-ray power supply

This paper proposes a dual-mode phase-shift modulation control scheme for series resonant inverter fed voltage multiplier (VM) based X-ray power supply. In this control scheme the outputs voltage of two parallel connected series resonant inverters are mixed before supplying to VM circuit. The output voltage of the power supply is controlled by varying the phase-shift between the output voltages of two inverters. In order to achieve quick rise of output voltage, the power supply is started with zero phase-shift and as the output voltage reaches 90% of the target voltage, the phase-shift is increased to a value which corresponds to target output voltage to prevent overshoot. The proposed control scheme has been shown to have good performance. Experimental results based on the scaled-down laboratory prototype are presented to validate the effectiveness of proposed dual-mode phase shift modulation control scheme.

Implementation of a Voltage Multiplier Integrated HID Ballast Circuit With Dimming Control for Automotive Application

High-intensity discharge (HID) lamps are becoming popular substitutes for halogen lamps in automotive headlamps because of the high lumen/watt ratio and the color of the light. In this paper, a ballast (integrated with a voltage multiplier circuit in the secondary winding of the dc converter transformer) with dimming control is presented. The proposed circuit not only eliminates one auxiliary winding but also reduces the voltage across the switch on the primary side and consequently permits the selection of switches with a lower rating. A brief review of the HID circuits is done and compared with the proposed circuit. Experimental results from the prototype are presented. This paper also presents different methods of dimming the automotive HID lamps based on analog and digital control and discusses the relative merits of each of the methods. The dimming control is implemented using both the methods, and experimental results are presented. It is envisaged that the dimming control will provide some flexibility to drivers in the control of HID lamps to suit the driving conditions in the modern cities that are very well lit at night. This paper investigates the merits of each method and discusses the practical issues for implementing such controls.