Solid State Thyratron Replacment

Thyratrons in high-power, short-pulse accelerators have a limited lifetime, making it desirable to replace the thyratrons with solid-state devices. Under a recently completed Small Business Innovative Research grant from the Department of Energy, Diversified Technologies, Inc. (DTI) has designed, built, and tested a solid state Thyratron Replacement switch. This switch is capable of meeting both the electrical and physical (size and cooling) requirements to deliver a form-fit-function replacement for the thyratrons used in the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC). It is expected to have an order-of-magnitude longer life than the thyratrons currently used in the SLC modulators.