A compact solid-state high repetition rate trigger based on a spiral generator.

The trigger generator made with a spiral generator (SG) has the advantages of light weight, compact structure, and low cost and has promising applications in the pulsed power field. This paper introduces a compact solid-state high-voltage pulse trigger system based on an improved SG, which has improved repetition rate and lowered the demands for semiconductor switches' maximum current and current rise rate when compared with previous studies. The improvement is achieved by winding outward an additional layer of the passive layer and low-voltage metal strip, which realizes a significant reduction of the peak current and current rise rate of the discharge switch. The final dimension of the trigger is 25 × 10 × 10 cm3, excluding the power supply. An experiment carried out in single shot mode shows that the peak value of the output pulse can reach 50 kV with a leading edge of 57 ns. Repetitive experiments were carried out up to 1 kHz, with the peak voltage of the output pulse being 30.5 kV, the leading edge being 48 ns, and the jitter being 0.84 ns. Finally, the generator is used to trigger a gas switch, and it works stably and reliably.