Production of high-energy photons from flash x-ray sources powered by stacked Blumlein generators

Abstract

Described here is the design and construction of a pulse-power generator capable of discharging at high repetition rates. It consists of eight triaxial Blumleins stacked in series at one end. These lines are charged in parallel and synchronously commuted with a single thyratron at the other end to produce an open circuit voltage across a stack of six times the charging voltage. An x-ray diode has been constructed and matched to this pulse-power source making possible the emission of an average bremsstrahlung exposure rate of 17 R/S from a sequence of 40-ns pulses. When operated at 60-kV charging voltage, direct spectral measurements show the output to be a true continuum, peaking at intensities in excess of 5×108 photons/keV/shot and containing useful intensities of photons having energies of 300 keV.