Reliable, high repetition rate thyratron grid driver used with a magnetic modulator

The Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS) Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory uses a magnetic modulator switched by a high voltage thyratron to drive a gas discharge laser. The thyratron trigger source must provide an extremely reliable, low jitter, high-rep-rate grid pulse. This paper describes a thyratron grid driver which delivers a 1.2 kV, 80 ns rise time grid pulse into a 50 ohm load at up to 4.5 kHz repetition rate and has demonstrated approximately 10,000 hours MTBF. Since the thyratron is used with a magnetic compression circuit having a delay time of 1.4 ms, this grid driver incorporates a jitter compensation circuit to adjust the trigger timing of the thyratron to provide overall modulator/laser jitter of less than +/- 2 ns. The specific grid driver requirements will be discussed followed by a description of the circuit design and theory of operation. Construction comments will be followed by performance data (for a specific thyratron and magnetic compression circuit), including pulse shape, jitter, and lifetime.