Soft switching circuit to improve efficiency of all solid-state Marx modulator for DBDs

Abstract

For an all solid-state Marx modulator applied in dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs), hard switching results in a very low efficiency. In this paper, a series resonant soft switching circuit, which series an inductance with DBD capacitor, is proposed to reduce the power loss. The power loss of the all circuit status with hard switching was analyzed, and the maximum power loss occurred during discharging at the rising and falling edges. The power loss of the series resonant soft switching circuit was also presented. A comparative analysis of the two circuits determined that the soft switching circuit greatly reduced power loss. The experimental results also demonstrated that the soft switching circuit improved the power transmission efficiency of an all solid-state Marx modulator for DBDs by up to 3 times.

Optimized analysis of sharpening characteristics of a compact RF pulse source based on a gyro-magnetic nonlinear transmission line for ultrawideband electromagnetic pulse application

“…where, U n is the node voltage; i n is the branch current; n is the series of the circuit model. It should be noted that magnetic flux (j) and the hyperbolic tangent function were introduced to describe the behavior of nonlinear inductance [13], as shown in equation (6).…”

“…where U(t) is the incident voltage; r is the distance away from the antenna; h(t) represents the impulse response of the antenna; Z air and Z ant represent the impedance of the air and antenna, respectively; f BW is the frequency bandwidth; and t r is the rise time of an incident voltage. In order to produce a voltage pulse waveform with a fast rising rate, some scholars have developed Marx or magnetic compression topology with solid-state switching devices [6][7][8]. As the rise time of a highpower voltage pulse is further compressed to the sub-nanosecond magnitude to increase the GHz frequency component as much as possible, the electric circuit most often adopted is a low-inductance storage medium and a spark gap filled with extremely high gas pressure (∼several MPa) [9][10][11][12].…”