Gate Driving Circuit for the All Solid-State Rectangular Marx Generator

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that rectangular high-voltage pulses have a high-performance in dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs). To generate the rectangular pulses used in the Marx generators, the most common way is driving two sets of switches synchronously with a different sequence. Because of the fast-changing current and voltage, the electromagnetic interference (EMI) will affect the circuit. Therefore, if two groups of switches were triggered mistakenly at the same time, it would cause the partial short-circuit phenomenon. In this paper, a new driving circuit with overcurrent protection for the Marx generators is proposed. It used only one synchronous signal to control two sets of switches. Experimental results showed that the short current could be limited within 100 A. The proposed driving circuit was applied to a seven-stage Marx generator, and 5-kV rectangular pulses can be obtained steadily at 1 kHz, which can greatly improve the stability of the system.