High Power SSTCs - Need help and opinions

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Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com> 


After doing a considerable amount of work with flea powered SSTCs such
as the PlasmaSonic SSTC and my high frequency
tweeter system (which is still ongoing), I'm ready to sit down and build
a monster SSTC capable of operating at many
kilowatts and hopefully put out huge, thick, and nasty output streamers.
I have a large budget allocated for this
winter project so if it takes $2000 worth of high performance FETs, so
be it.  But I want it to be nasty beast of a
SSTC.

There are currently two routes which are both difficult in their own
regard.

1) Maximize output power utilizing maximum primary voltage waveforms
    (Primary difficulty is switching high voltage switch with solid state
devices)

2) Maximize output power utilizing maximum primary current waveforms
    (Difficulty in maximizing primary impedance and current handling
capabilities of solid state devices)


I would like to use option number 2 and maximize the primary current.  I
already believe Justin and Aaron have done
considerable work in this area.  My questions are:

A.  There has to be some limit to the amount of turns one can place on
the primary when trying to lower the impedance
of the primary to maximize primary current.  Once this limit is reached,
what other alternatives are there for lowering
this impedance even more.

B.  Will building a rather large primary / secondary coil system result
in even lower primary impedances???  Obviously, thicker wire will have a
lower impedance, but what about coupling between coils?

Throw out any and all opinions, comments, you can.  I do want to build a
SSTC capable of 10kW+.  Its going to be a challenge (plethora of snubber
circuits, transmission line designed gate drivers, FDFI, etc...), but it
will be fun!

Dan