A compact high-voltage, spiral strip-line pfn trigger generator

Summary form only given. A low-cost, high-voltage trigger generator has been developed to trigger a high-power, high-action integral crowbar spark gap closing switch. This switch is the main component of a power-crowbar 200kA lightning impulse current generator circuit, which is currently under development for testing lightning protection components [1] at the High-Voltage and High-Current Research and Development Laboratory of ELEMKO SA in Thiva, Boeotia, Greece. The trigger generator is capable of producing 90 kV voltage pulses, having a rise time and duration of 100 and 160 ns respectively. It uses an air-insulated, spiral strip-line (vector inversion) [2] pulse forming network (PFN) fired by a compact trigatron switch, and is fully controllable from single shot up to 10Hz. Design details of the spiral strip-line PFN are provided as well as computation and experimental results regarding the output pulse magnitude, duration and voltage multiplication efficiency. The device is very compact, portable and is operated via a fiber-optic link through a solid-state pulse generator. The trigger generator can also be used as a fast high-voltage, high-peak power driving device for pulsed power applications.