Frequency and bandwidth agile pulser for use in electrical and biological effects testing

In this paper we present a Blumlein based pulse generator designed to be tunable in both center frequency and bandwidth. The pulser is designed around a parallel plate Blumlein configuration with a moveable center conductor. The pulse width is determined by moving the center conductor in and out of the Blumlein region, and the bandwidth is set by offsetting the center conductor towards one or the other of the outer electrodes. The output is designed to drive a test volume with cross sectional area on the order of 1 cm/sup 2/. The final system will be capable of producing fields on the order of 30 kV/cm and will be useful for testing the interaction of high field, pulsed electromagnetic energy with small-scale electrical and biological systems. A low voltage experimental arrangement will be presented in this paper.