Pulser development for high speed photography

High voltage electronics has been a vital part of high speed photography for many years. Most high speed (sub μsec) camera systems rely on image conversion techniques in which a photon image is converted into an electron image. The very high electron charge to mass ratio allows rapid manipulation of electron signals and images however the quest the ever greater time resolution necessitates ever higher voltage switching speeds. This desire has led to a design for an avalanche pulser which could drive kilovolt pulses into cables with sub-nsec risetime, allowing the sweep electronics to be remote from the electron optics. The authors describe the novel features of the design which are a tapered microstrip transformer to match the output impedance plus zener diodes to control the quiescent voltage across the avalanche transistors