Diamond Fast Opening Switch for High Voltage, High Average Power X-Ray, Elec

Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation (AASC) proposes to develop an all-solid-state, compact, portable, multi-gigawatt poer modulator for electron and ion beam diodes, high power microwave and x-ray sources. This modulator is based on Inductive Energy Store (IES) using an array of Diamond Opening Switches for power compression. Because power amplification using IES requires a much smaller volume than capacitive pulse compression, the footprint of such modulators is considerably smaller than that of equivalent pulse-line accelerators. The repetition rate is also much higher than for modulators that use gas switches. Magnetic switches are best suited to low energy/pulse applications, becoming bulky and less cost effective at >100J/pulse energies. Si (or GaAs) switches have low voltage hold-off and are limited to 1kJ/pulse at > 10kHz rep-rate, with voltage hold-off at the 0.5-1MV level. These parameters make it suitable for compact x-ray sources, high power microwaves, waste clean-up withelectron beams and ion beams for materials modification.