Preliminary performance results of a high-current Cs-Ba tacitron in a simple inverter

Author

Masten, G.B. ; Djachiachvili, I.N. ; Morris, D.B. ; Gahl, J.M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., New Mexico Univ., Albuquerque, NM, USA

Volume

2

fYear

1995

fDate

3-6 July 1995

Firstpage

816

Abstract

A tacitron is a gas-discharge triode that is designed to be completely grid-controlled. Demountable cesium-barium (Cs-Ba) tacitrons have exhibited very low forward voltage drops in the range of a few volts, hold-off voltages greater than 200 V, and average conduction current densities greater than 10 A/cm/sup 2/. These characteristics yield an average power switching density on the order of 10/sup 3/ W/cm/sup 2/ in excess of 95% peak switching efficiency. This parameter regime places the Cs-Ba tacitron in the range of conventional solid-state devices, with the advantage that the tacitron should reliably operate in extremes of temperature and radiation. The intent of this investigation is to determine the feasibility of constructing a 6 kW continuous power inverter unit with a pair of high-current tacitrons.

Keywords

barium; caesium; current density; gas-discharge tubes; invertors; pulsed power switches; triodes; 6 kW; 95 percent; Cs-Ba; average conduction current densities; average power switching density; continuous power inverter; demountable cesium-barium tacitrons; gas-discharge triode; high-current Cs-Ba tacitron; peak switching efficiency; solid-state devices; very low forward voltage drops; Barium; Circuit testing; Inverters; Plasma temperature; Pulse measurements; Pulse modulation; Reservoirs; Space technology; Trigger circuits; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Pulsed Power Conference, 1995. Digest of Technical Papers., Tenth IEEE International

Conference_Location

Albuquerque, NM, USA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-2791-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PPC.1995.599712

Filename

599712