Marx/LTD-Convertible Circuit for Solid-State Pulsed Power Generator

Marx circuit and linear transformer driver (LTD) circuit are popular circuit methods widely used in solid-state pulsed power generators. They achieve pulsed voltage adding through different approaches, i.e., capacitive adding for the Marx and inductive adding for the LTD. For this reason, pulsed power circuits based on these methods have different topologies and different structures. This article proposes a novel circuit method for pulsed power generation that, through proper switching control, allows the user to choose the operation mode from either Marx mode or LTD mode, without the need to physically change anything of the circuit. The proposed circuit design uses additional switches to control the magnetizing current around the core, which not only allows pulsed core reset but also enables circuit transition between Marx mode and LTD mode. Demonstration experiments are carried out by using a four-module system. The results have shown that the operation mode of every module can be independently converted so that the same system allows us to change its operation mode from Marx mode to LTD mode, or a mixed mode, or a hybrid mode, in a pulse-to-pulse manner.