A Compact High-Voltage, Nanosecond Pulse Generator for Triggering Applications

A low cost, high-voltage, nanosecond pulse trigger generator has been designed and constructed to trigger a high-power, high-action integral crowbar spark gap plasma closing switch. This switch is one of the most important components of a 200kA, 10/350 mu s impulse current generator, which is currently under development for testing lightning protection components. The trigger generator is can produce 80kV voltage pulses at its output, with a rise time and duration of 35ns and 100ns (Full Width at Half Magnitude - FWHM) respectively. It utilizes a spiral strip-line (vector inversion) pulse forming network (PFN) insulated with air, which is fired by a compact trigatron switch. Apart from its compactness, the device is fully controlled from single shot up to a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 10Hz by a digital pulse timing generator through a fiber optic link. In addition to design and construction information of the trigger generator, this work provides experimental results regarding the output pulse magnitude, duration and voltage multiplication efficiency of the spiral strip-line PFN.