Speaker
Description
Verus Research designed and modeled a novel plasma switch assembly to optimize the mechanical and electrical characteristics required to create an efficient and reliable family of switches for megawatt sources. There is a need in the high-power community for a fast rise-time High Power Radio Frequency (HPRF) pulse shaping tool to augment slow risetime HPRF sources, such as magnetrons, to support physics and engineering tests. We developed an efficient High-Power Pulse Shaping (HPPS) capability that can be incorporated into an existing source without the need to procure a different source or pulsed power system, providing test facilities with a tunable, cost-efficient capability. Our augmented capability is used for applications requiring adjustable pulse width while achieving a fast risetime and maintaining pulse repetition frequency; applications include electronics testing, antenna testing, model verification of RF coupling, among others. The use of a high-power circulator combined with HPPS isolates the HPRF source from reflected power created during the pulse shaping process. We discuss optimization of the HPPS design with emphasis on maximizing the ratio of the shaped, output-pulse, peak power to the input peak power. A rise and fall time of less than 10 ns was observed during initial testing with a pulse width of less than 100 ns. We present results from extensive parametric modeling of S-band configurations utilizing a WR284 waveguide, examining the effect of materials properties, gap spacing, and dielectric strength.
