High Voltage Pulse Generator for High-Energy Beam Kickers

Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has been selected as the site for the Electron Ion Collider (EIC). This upgrade will make use of existing infrastructure. However, new equipment and facilities are required, including a 150 MeV energy recovery LINAC, which requires a new short-pulse stripline kicker. The kicker requires a power system that can deliver ±50 kV pulses with a width less than 38 ns into a 50 Ω load with low jitter. The power system must be highly reliable and robust to potential faults. Inductive adders are solid-state pulsed power systems that can robustly and reliable produce short, high voltage pulses into a variety of loads. Eagle Harbor Technologies (EHT), Inc. is leveraging our previous experience developing inductive adders to produce a pulsed power system that can meet the needs of the BNL kickers. This inductive adder incorporates EHT proprietary gate drive that enables precision solid- state switching required for good current sharing a low-jitter operation. In the Phase I, EHT will design, build, and test a single stage of an inductive adder that can demonstrate the basic principles of operation. A single stage will be model, and the printed circuit board (PCB) designed. This PCB will be operated at its full voltage and full current (1 kA). The precise pulse shape (rise, flattop, and fall time), low-jitter operation, and voltage stability will be demonstrated. The data from the single stage testing will be used produce a preliminary design of the full inductive adder, which would be constructed in a potential Phase II program. The proposed work would develop a 50 kV inductive adder for stripline kickers for use at the EIC at BNL. The EIC will enable new research in nuclear physics and quantum chromodynamics as well as ensure U.S. leadership in accelerator science and technology. However, this same inductive adder technology can be applied to kickers at other accelerators including light sources and medical accelerators, which are two larger markets for this technology. Additionally, there are aerospace and defense-related applications that require fast-risetime high-voltage pulses. While EHT has a product family of inductive adders, it is extremely likely that the proposed work would significantly increase their capability to allow them to be deployed in new markets.