Screened two stage PFN Blumlein made up of 50kV - 1nF ceramic capacitors

Each stage and associated trigatron are assembled in a 3 bar air pressurized tube, whereas the resistive load can be in a 5E-9bar vacuum vessel. Each stage comprises 2 PFN including 12 LC cells with L= 330 nH and C = 2 nF so that the impedance Z = radic(L/C)= 13 Omega and the transit time T = 12 radic(L/C) = 310 ns. A simple initial generator was built, but it requires modifications to get the expected 100 kV - 620 ns rectangular voltage pulse on the matched load of 52 Omega, because four physical phenomena were underestimated. They are about the expanding plasma of the trigatron, the plasma sheath around the load, the flashover on the tube-vessel interface and the capacitive coupling between the stages. All these problems are pointed up by specific measurements and simulations.