Investigation of a high impedance magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator with hollow load

A novel high-impedance magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator (MILO) with greatly restrained power deposition on the anode has been investigated. Methods to increase the MILO impedance and decrease the anode current are discussed. A MILO with impedance of 30 X and power conversion efficiency of 25% is presented by particle-in-cell simulations. Compared with the previous MILO in our lab, the anode current of the proposed MILO is reduced about 50%, the power conversion efficiency doubles, and the power deposition on anode is reduced nearly one half. Furthermore, considerations for reducing the power deposition on load have also been carried out in MILO design, and the load current is reduced to 4.6 kA, only 17% of the total anode current. Finally, a hollow load was introduced to reduce the power deposition density on the load, without decreasing the power conversion efficiency. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4752019]