Preliminary performance results of the Cs-Ba tacitron inverter

Experiments were conducted which demonstrated that an inverter could be configured by connecting two Cs-Ba tacitrons in a push-pull mode with alternating voltage grid control. The inverter characteristics demonstrated in the thyratron mode include discharge current up to 20 A, collector voltage of 30 V, conduction voltage drop less than 2.5 V, and modulation frequencies up to 10 kHz. In the tacitron mode, the inverter operated at a discharge current of up to 3.5 A, collector voltage of 25 V, conduction voltage drop of 3-3.5 V, and modulation frequencies up to 20 kHz. These attributes makes the Cs-Ba tacitron inverters suitable for low-voltage current sources, such as space nuclear reactor power systems.