Compact pulse "cold cathode"-flash X-ray tube power supply unit with solid-state opening switch

Abstract

From early 70s X-ray compact pulse X-ray generators with cold cathode X-ray tubes could be found in various industry and science applications. High voltage pulse in our generator is produced by semiconductor opening switch implementation in inductive energy storage circuit. Idea of current flow breaking is widely used in high-power technique, where plasma opening switches opened a new page in power transitions. A lot of investigations carried out in the field of pulsed power solid-state opening switches both specially controlled and based on commercial high-voltage diodes. To investigate the behaviors of commercially available high-voltage diodes when implemented as solid-state opening switches we studied a number of high-voltage diodes with breakdown voltage more than 5 kV.