A solid state high voltage pulse modulator which is compact and without oil or a pulse transformer

The conventional high voltage pulsed modulator utilizes a pulse transformer, PFN (Pulse forming network), and thyratron to develop high voltage power pulses for klystron, magnetrons, lasers, etc. The pulse transformer, PFN, and thyratron normally operate in oil at high voltage and are large and expensive. The use of thyratron, high voltages and no redundancy reduces the reliability of the present day modulator. A new all solid-state modulator has been developed by Stangenes Industries to eliminate the pulse transformer, PFN and thyratron. The modulator is compacted and requires no oil insulation. The modulator is presently designed for applications that require less than 100 W pulses with continually adjustable pulse width from 200 nanoseconds to more than one hundred microseconds with a duty factor of less than 0.06. The output voltage can be made to be either positive, negative or bidirectional with programmable pulse width and adjustable amplitude (if required). The source voltage is at the grounded end of the modulator and low voltage. The modulator can accept load arcing and has built-in automatic redundancy. The design concept, prototype modulator and performance will be discussed