An air‐core power crowbar transformer has been successfuly applied to a passively crowbarred theta‐pinch plasma physics experiment with a large (1‐MA), fast‐rising (0.5‐μs) solenoid current. Without the power crowbar, the current falls exponentially from its peak value with a decay time of 20 μs. With the power crowbar, the current remains at its peak value for ∼30 μs before falling. As described here, it can be built with materials that are lightweight and inexpensive. For applications similar to this one, these two features make the air‐core power crowbar transformer simpler and less expensive than one with a ferrite or ferromagnetic core.
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