Compact, battery powered, 400-kV, 40-joule portable Marx generator

Summary form only given, as follows. The experimental results of a portable, battery powered, 400-kV, 40-Joule compact Marx generator are presented. The Marx Generator, high voltage power supplies, batteries, and remote fiber optic high voltage enable and trigger control circuits are all contained in an aluminum tube measuring 5 inches in diameter and 20 inches in length. The space within the tube is divided into the Marx Generator section and the power supply section. The Marx Generator section is completely modular and can be easily unplugged to facilitate repair or exchange. The use of non-encapsulated, 22 nF, 10 W surface mount chip capacitors, mounted to a printed circuit board together with the charging resistors, resulted in a very compact assembly. The capacitors and charging resistors are potted in a dielectric gel while the spark gaps are independently insulated with SF/sub 6/ and aligned in a line-of-sight configuration for UV coupling. The entire Marx Generator section is packaged in a Lucite tube, approximately 10 inches in length, which can be pressurized to 50 psi. Rep rates of 1 pps and rise times of 20 ns are typical.