Design and development of Line type modulators for high impedance electron gun

Conventional line type modulators are routinely used for powering pulsed power microwave devices such as magnetrons and klystrons used for radar, medical and scientific applications. The load impedance (operating point) is fairly well defined in these cases, and makes the design of the discharging circuit of the modulator straight forward. This paper describes the Line type modulators that have been developed and being routinely used for powering the Triode Electron Gun of industrial electron linacs. The beam parameters of such guns are user defined and the pulse current varies from few mA to 800mA (typ). The beam energies requirement varies from 40keV to 80keV. Hence the impedance offered by the electron gun to the power source (modulator) is not well defined. The load capacitance which is inclusive of the various stray capacitances along with the intrinsic gun capacitance is ~ 200-400 pF. This capacitance, which depends on the configuration, shunts the load and makes the effective load highly capacitive with the resistive part varying over a wide range. The paper describes the design and development of conventional line type modulators for powering Electron gun load of the type described above.