Analog amplitude modulation of a high voltage, solid state inductive adder, pulse generator using MOSFETs

High voltage, solid state, inductive adder, pulse generators have found increasing application as fast kicker pulse modulators for charged particle beams. The solid state, inductive adder, pulse generator is similar in operation to the linear induction accelerator. The main difference is that the solid state, adder couples energy by transformer action from multiple primaries to a voltage summing stalk, instead of an electron beam. Ideally, the inductive adder produces a rectangular voltage pulse at the load. In reality, there is usually some voltage variation at the load due to droop on primary circuit storage capacitors, or, temporal variations in the load impedance. Power MOSFET circuits have been developed to provide analog modulation of the output voltage amplitude of a solid state, inductive adder, pulse generator. The modulation is achieved by including MOSFET based, variable subtraction circuits in the multiple primary stack. The subtraction circuits can be used to compensate for voltage droop, or, to tailor the output pulse amplitude to provide a desired effect in the load. Power MOSFET subtraction circuits have been developed to modulate short, temporal (60-400 ns), voltage and current pulses. MOSFET devices have been tested up to 20 Amps and 800 Volts with a band pass of 50 MHz. An analog modulation cell has been tested in a five cell high, voltage adder stack.