Development of Inductive Storage Pulsed Power Generators

摘要

A pulse generator, Pawn, has been assembled at the Naval Research Laboratory. It uses inductive energy storage and opening switch power conditioning techniques with high energy density capacitors as the primary energy store. The capacitor bank stores 1 MJ at 44 kV. The energy stored in the capacitor bank is transferred to a vacuum storage inductor in 20 microsecs. Wire fuses provide the first stage of pulse compression. Further pulse compression is obtained from a plasma erosion opening switch. Initial results are encouraging. Nearly 0.1 TW of electrical power was delivered to an electron beam diode load in a 100-ns FWHM pulse. A peak voltage at the load of approx. = 350 kV represents a factor of approx. = 14 voltage gain over the initial, 25-kV bank voltage.