Fundamental Study on a Long-Duration Flash X-Ray Generator with a Surface-Discharge Triode

Abstract

Fundamental studies on a long-duration flash X-ray generator are described. This generator consisted of the following components: a high-voltage power supply with a maximum voltage of 100 kV, an energy-storage condenser of 500 nF, a main discharge condenser of 10 nF, a turbo molecular pump, a thyratron pulser as a trigger device, and a surface-discharge triode. The effective pulse width was less than 30 µs, and the X-ray intensity approximately had a value of 0.6 µC/kg at 1.0 m per pulse with a charged voltage of 60 kV. The maximum tube voltage was equivalent to the initial charged voltage of the condenser, and the peak tube current was less than 40 A. With this generator, we could obtain stable X-ray intensity maximized by preventing damped oscillations of the tube voltage and current.