A high‐voltage solid‐state Marx generator with adjustable pulse edges

Abstract

Abstract Most reactors for non‐thermal plasma excitation are capacitive to pulse generators. The density and temperature of electrons in plasma are dominated by the discharging currents which are proportional to the pulse edges. However, adjusting the pulse edges is quite challenging since the switching speed and the inductance and capacitance in the discharging loops dominate them. This study proposes a drive circuit for solid‐state Marx generators with adjustable edges. The drive circuit controls the Miller plateau by adjusting the gate voltage amplitude to adjust both the rise time and fall time of pulses continuously and independently. The influence of the gate voltage on the Miller plateau and the rise time is studied. The feasibility is verified by both simulating and experimental results. An 8‐stage solid‐state Marx generator prototype was built, and 4.8‐kV pulses with a rise time in the range of 79 ns‐22.21 μs were obtained over capacitive loads. Adjusting pulse edges can control the current amplitudes in dielectric barrier discharge loads.