A 120kV IGBT modulator for driving a Pierce electron gun

An IGBT modulator has been developed to drive a 120 kV, 23 A Pierce electron gun. The modulator is capable of producing pulses up to 10 μs in width at repetition rates up to 10Hz with no active reset. The pulse rise time on the electron gun will be approximately 2 μs and the remaining 8 μs of flattop is tuned to have a ripple of less than 1 percent rms. The modulator technology was developed from a previous 50 kV prototype. The modulator consists of six boards, each with one EUPEC IGBT that drives a single common step-up transformer wound on METGLAS 2605SC cores. The six transformer cores share a common bi-filar output secondary winding. The modulator uses a fiber optic trigger system and has a high voltage cable output with an epoxy receptacle on the oil end and a ceramic receptacle on the vacuum end. The 120 kV electron gun was manufactured by MDS Co. and will be used to generate sheet electron beams from the standard pencil beam produced by the Pierce electron gun.