Development and investigation of two optimized soft switching pulsed power resonant converters for RF applications

Power modulators for high energy physics accelerators and similar systems are required to generate a series of high quality voltage pulses to power an Radio Frequency (RF) tube. Each pulse lasts several milliseconds in time, and needs to be perfectly regulated in magnitude. A stringent pulse dynamics (that with a fast rise time but no overshoot) is also demanded to ensure high conversion efficiency. The current generation of those modulators [1] is based on line frequency technology, which requires bulky passive components and bouncer circuits to meet the strict pulse requirements and a crowbar circuit for the purpose of load protection from large energy storage. In the past decade, to meet the increased demand of developing compact modulators with high efficiency and high power density, resonant power converters techniques have been considered widely in an effort to revolutionize the conventional approach.