A Lithium Niobate Piezoelectric Transformer Resonant High-Voltage Power Source

Miniaturized high-voltage power converter techniques might offer an improved outlook for the development of compact accelerator technologies. We view the identification of materials and circuits that provide both high-voltage isolation and efficient power coupling characteristics to be the primary engineering challenge. A lithium niobate resonant piezoelectric transformer was mated to a voltage multiplier circuit, and the input-output terminal characteristics were investigated. This paper considers the piezoelectric transformer-coupled voltage multiplier circuit as a black box and reports on the input impedance, output voltage, power conversion efficiency, and transient charging capacity. We found that the circuit was well suited to the charging capacitors of arbitrary size to voltages well over ten kilovolts at power-conversion efficiencies approaching 20%. The circuit was also quite capable of driving a vacuum diode to high voltage. The piezoresonant transformers coupled to output power conditioning circuits appear to be good candidates for producing high voltage in a small footprint.