RF pulse compressor for kW-pulse power

This contribution presents the concept of high-power pulse generation from a lower-power generator using the “pulse compression” technique. The principle of operation is based on a transmission line resonator which is “charged-up” by a CW-generator while a switch at the open-end of the resonator is used to trigger the release of the stored energy into a load. The resulting pulse has the duration of a round-trip time of the resonator and the step-up factor of power (power gain) is shown to depend on the Q-factor of the resonator and its length. As a demonstration, a power compressor experiment is presented using coaxial transmission lines to generate 1 kW pulses of 71 nsec duration at 21 MHz and 0.5 kW pulses of 110 nsec at 300 MHz and employing a gas discharge tube as the switch.