A novel solid state pulsed power module for excimer laser

For effective excimer laser pumping high voltage pulses with the pulse duration of 100ns and energies from a fraction of joules to some 10 joules are necessary. This energy is deposited via a gas discharge into the laser vessel. The generation of these pulses traditionally provided by Thyraton circuits. The limited lifetime and repetition rates of such a device does not fulfill the requirements of a modern excimer laser. State of the art is solid state circuits with IGBT switches, high voltage pulse transformer, and pulse compression networks are used. Due to the many stages complexity is high and efficiency is moderate. To overcome this limitation a ne w solid state circuit for excimer laser pumping was developed. The circuit works without magnetic pulse compression. The switch is made by a stack of "off the self" MOSFETs and SiC diodes. In the presentation the general design and its calculation, diode and switch qualification and test results are presented. An additional focus is the charging circuit and the power supply for high repetition rate operation.