A 30kV/24A Hard-Tube Pulser for Electron Guns and Microwave Generators

Currently under development in our laboratory, a microwave generator (monotron) at 6.7 GHz will operate with a beam current of 16 A at 10 kV. For this, normally we employ an on-off power modulator that uses only a floating high voltage switch to discharge a capacitor through the device. However because of the high voltage isolation between the tube deck and control panel at the ground and the relatively low current of the tube cathode (10 A), we are proposing a new pulser design. In this configuration circuit, the switching is performed by means of a cascade solid- state IGBT switch near ground in cascade with several parallel tubes connected in parallel. In this way we expect to operate the device with a maximum power capability of 30kV/24A at repetition frequencies on the order of 1 kHz at pulse widths of 50 mus.