A Novel, Compact SSMG Architecture for Portable Pulsed Electric Field Applications

This article presents a novel, compact, battery-operated solid-state Marx generator (SSMG) architecture for handheld applications. The presented architecture is based on a cascaded modular structure of different SSMGs with each SSMG acting as a capacitive load to its predecessor. With a battery used as the input charging dc source, the proposed architecture is capable of producing the same output voltage as a conventional SSMG but with a far smaller number of stages. Based on the intended load, such architecture can be used either to produce an initial high dc charging voltage
$\ge $
900 V for a capacitive load (SSMG) or to generate large amplitude pulses in case a resistive/inductive load is used. A detailed mathematical model for the proposed architecture is presented; it calculates the instantaneous circuit output voltage and the required number of pulses/pulsewidth required to reach the target output level. As a proof of concept, a cascade of two seven-stage SSMGs—with different topologies—is constructed. The cascaded structure, driven by a 24-V source, is simulated using LTspice and found to produce output pulses with amplitude in excess of 920 V across a 100-
$\Omega $
resistive load with about 12-ns rise time and 2-
$\mu $
s full-width half-magnitude (FWHM). The circuit is implemented, and the measured output closely matches the simulation results. The herein proposed architecture has the potential to provide the required dc voltage/pulses for portable pulsed electric field (PEF) applications.