Nanosecond pulse delivery device with adjustable pulse-width based on IGBT

Irreversible electroporation is a new technology that uses nanoseconds to milliseconds electric pulses to kill tumor. It causes minimally invasive in a non-thermal effect. Its rapid rise time, high voltage, and high repetition electrical pulses are used to trigger the necrosis of cells in target tissue. The structure of the system, the work flow of the device, and the power control of the delivering pulses were described. This paper introduced a nanosecond pulse generator and delivery device with adjustable pulse-width based on insulated gate bipolar transistor(IGBT). Utilizing the rapid on-off time of IGBT and the quick control of field-programmable gate array(FPGA), the maximum rise time of pulses working on a 50 Ω resistive load is from 52 ns to 62 ns, the pulse-width is adjustable from 30 μs to 100 μs, the pulse-amplitude could vary from 100 V to 3500 V, and the repetition rate could adjust from 1 Hz to 100 kHz. The experimental results meet the needs of tumor therapies.