High Output Pulsed Power Source

The Electron Ion Collider (EIC) injection system kickers require an extremely high peak voltage of +/-50 kV (dual-channel) to be dissipated in a 50 Ohm impedance, corresponding to 1 kA peak current, and <10 ns rise and fall times of the pulse. Existing drivers (pulsers) operate at only a few kilovolts, and most of them utilize high voltage MOSFET switches. However, MOSFETs suffer from residual resistance, which substantially limits their efficiency, and more importantly they do not demonstrate sharp enough pulse edges. Another existing approach is based on a fixed-length pulse forming network with fast ionization dynistor. It provides with good switching speed but has limitation of adjusting the pulse duration. Thus, current state-of-the-art pulsers are not applicable for the EIC kickers system and there are no reliable US- based vendors of such challenging systems. This project is developing and testing a high output pulse generator based on distributed pulser topology that utilizes novel GaN transistors as switching devices. GaN is a rapidly growing technology that enables both high peak and average power operation along with extremely short switching times of nanosecond- scale, which even creates margin on tight rise and fall times requirements for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) kickers. In Phase I, we designed, fabricated, and tested a scalable power unit based on GaN-technology. The prototype delivers 6 kV voltage amplitude (120 A current) with 3 ns rise and fall times and demonstrates feasibility for scaling to the required 50 kV level with even shorter pulse edges than required by the EIC fast kickers systems. In the proposed Phase II project, we will fabricate a full-scale, dual-channel (positive and negative 50 kV) pulse generator, including a reliable control and monitoring system that can be integrated to the end user’s infrastructure. The final deliverable of this project will be a complete prototype that is tested at the required nominal output power level and is ready for shipment to Brookhaven National Laboratory for further testing. The target segment is nuclear physics accelerator labs, as well as free electron laser and advanced light source facilities. Other applications include civil and military electronic components including radars, power conversion devices, Pockels cells drivers for lasers and high-power electro-optics, ozonators, ground penetration radars, and pulsed radiolysis.