Fast SCR thyratron driver

As part of an improvement project on the linear accelerator at SLAC, it was necessary to replace the original thyratron trigger generator, which consisted of two chassis, two vacuum tubes, and a small thyratron. All solid-state, fast rise, and high voltage thyratron drivers, therefore, have been developed and built for the 244 klystron modulators. The rack mounted, single chassis driver employs a unique way to control and generate pulses through the use of an asymmetric SCR, a PFN, a fast pulse transformer, and a saturable reactor. The resulting output pulse is 2 kV peak into 50 /spl Omega/ load with pulse duration of 1.5 /spl mu/s FWHM at 180 Hz. The pulse risetime is less than 40 ns with less than 1 ns jitter. Various techniques are used to protect the SCR from being damaged by high voltage and current transients due to thyratron breakdowns. The end-of-line clipper (EOLC) detection circuit is also integrated into this chassis to interrupt the modulator triggering in the event of a high percentage of line reflections occurring.