A transmission line based compact repetitive and portable cascaded Blumlein pulser

Blumlein generator is a flexible transmission line based device which is well suited for high voltage pulse generation with time durations ranging from few nanoseconds to microseconds. Its well defined output impedance and degree of flexibility to obtain defined pulse shapes with fixed voltage gain makes it suitable for large variety of pulsed power applications. In the presented paper we report the design and construction of a multipurpose, low cost, small size, light weight (weighing less than 50kg) and easily transportable nanosecond pulser made in '3 stages (/spl times/6) cascaded Blumlein configuration'. It produces rectangular flat top of 50 ns with rise and fall time of less than 10 ns and generates output voltage up to 300 kV under open circuit condition and 150 kV/500 A under matched load condition delivering 75 Megawatts of peak power in a 300 /spl Omega/ load at repetition rate of 33Hz. To ensure high breakdown voltage RG218/50 /spl Omega/ coaxial cable has been used as transmission line. The remote charging of transmission line is done using a 100 W switch mode DC to DC converter powered by 24 V DC battery. Applications of this pulse generator include X-ray generation, breakdown tests, ion implantation, streamer discharge studies, ultra wideband generation etc.