Half-Bridge and Full-Bridge Choke Converter Concepts for the Pulsed Operation of Large Dielectric Barrier Discharge Lamps

The paper presents a new configuration of electronic ballast for large dielectric barrier discharge lamps used in backlighting applications. The new ballast is developed for PLANON lamps, manufactured by Osram. This lamp features environmental friendliness, a long lifetime and no startup time due to external electrodes and a mercury-free Xenon gas mixture. The mainly used ballast topology is the Class-E converter. Two novel ballast topologies-the half-bridge and the full-bridge choke converter concepts-are demonstrated. Measurement results of the proposed topologies under variation of input parameters are presented. An isolated metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor drive concept which fulfills the requirements of the ballast is developed and implemented. An equivalent circuit diagram for the lamp is determined and compared with measurement results. The proposed topologies can significantly increase the lamp´s luminous efficacy compared to Class-E topology