About Laboratory

The Laboratory Team:

Left to right, top: Anvar Sabitov, Andrei Ponomarev, Maksim Pedos
middle: Anton Gusev, Eugeny Alichkin, Sergei Lyubutin, Aleksei Bushlyakov, Yuri Ignatenko
bottom: Viktor Putkov, Sergei Tsyranov, Sergei Rukin, Boris Slovikovsky, Sergei Timoshenkov
(2017, November)

The Pulsed Power Laboratory was organized in 1994 to conduct research on the effect of nanosecond cutoff of superdense currents in semiconductors (SOS effect), discovered in the Institute of Electrophysics, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1992. Based on the research, high-voltage semiconductor devices of a new type named SOS diodes were developed, which are powerful solid-state opening switches. SOS diodes served as the basis for the development of a fundamentally new class of high-power semiconductor nanosecond generators with an output voltage of hundreds of kV. The results of fundamental research and development led to the formation of a new scientific and technical direction: super-power nanosecond semiconductor electronics.

The most important characteristics of generators, such as pulsed power and output voltage, have been increased tens and hundreds of times in comparison with the previously known semiconductor devices. In particular, in nanosecond semiconductor technology, the megavolt voltage range combined with a gigawatt peak power level was achieved for the first time. The developed devices have an all-solid-state switching system and are characterized by a high pulse repetition rate and a long lifetime.

Scientific ideas, as well as commercial samples of devices and instruments developed by Pulsed Power Laboratory, are used in various Russian and foreign organizations. So in the Institute of Electrophysics they find application in other laboratories and scientific groups for generation of repetitive electron beams and X-ray pulses, feeding high-power microwave generators, research on the generation of powerful runaway electron streams in gas and studies on air ionization with a streamer corona discharge for removal of toxic impurities. Since 1996, pulse generators and opening switches have been supplied to 22 foreign organizations from 9 countries, including USA, China, Great Britain, Japan, Israel, and others.

The team of authors from Pulsed Power Laboratory for the conducted studies was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology for 2002, and in 2017 the international Erwin Marx Award was received for pioneering work in the discovery of the SOS effect.