Design of a Power Amplifier for the LAMPF Proton Storage Ring Transverse Damper System

A power amplifier has been designed to drive the 50-¿ stripline deflection structures in the transverse active damper of the Los Alamos 800-MeV Proton Storage Ring (PSR). The unit will provide 600-V peak-to-peak with a dc-to-100-MHz bandwidth. Other important characteristics include <40-ns delay time, 50-dB voltage gain, and 4-ns risetime with <5% overshoot and ringing. Because of the current-drive properties of the amplifier, two amplifiers could be combined to provide over 1000-V peak-to-peak into 50 ¿, with very little bandwidth degradation. Components in the power amplifier that represent new designs are a 20-tube distributed-amplifier output stage; a driver stage, using VMOS FET and bipolar transistors; a high-voltage probe, with good dc stability and 150-MHz bandwidth; a transient suppressor circuit, using PIN diodes to protect the transistorized drivers from tube arcing; a nonlinear amplifier to compensate for the nonlinear characteristics of the distributed amplifier; and a first-fail indicator circuit to aid in locating the prime causes of equipment failures.