Development and Application of Solid State Pulsed Power Generators Based on Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches

Compact solid state pulsed power generators operated in high repetition rate are developed for the applications of pulsed power technology. After comparing different solid state switches and topology, stacked Blumlein line generators based on photoconductive semiconductor switches(PCSSs) were investigated. A high current solid state module which was made of ferroelectric ceramic pulse forming lines and PCSSs was developed, and the current of the PCSS exceeded 4 k A. The solid state X-ray machine consisting of a 200 k V/1 k A pulsed power generator and an industrial cold cathode diode was used to generate the X-ray pulses in burst mode with the pulse width of 40 ns and the repetition rate of 100 Hz or 1 k Hz. Ultrafast high voltage pulses generated by the Blumlein line module based on PCSS were applied to the inactivation of blood pathogens. The observations show that the inhibition ratio of bacteria in red blood cells solution can be 57% with the treatment of 10 pulses and the pulse electric field of 80 k V/cm.