Electroporation or electropermebilization is a technique in which an electrical field is applied to cells in order to increase the permeability of the cell membrane. This procedure is being successfully used in biology, biotechnology and medicine. The application requires electroporator and electrodes. An electroporator is a high voltage pulse generator that generates pulses of specific shape, amplitude, duration, number and pulse repetition frequency. The first goal of my master’s thesis is to choose the most appropriate driving circuit and MOSFET switch for the purpose of designing few kilo volts nanosecond pulse generator or electroporator. We focused on the new technology, a silicon carbide MOSFET’s which we believe is the most suitable technology for the realization of diode opening switch nanosecond pulse generator. In testing we noticed that a square pulse generator was inappropriate because of double pulse phenomenon. Throughout the master’s thesis we evaluate and compare new silicon carbide MOSFET with most commonly used technologies. Further on we show our design which incorporates new technology and knowledge gained from earlier evaluation. In addition, we give an explanation of the workings and measurements of our nanosecond pulse generator. The device generates 3.8 kV pulses of Gaussian shape and 10 ns duration on 50 Ω load. Within the thesis we have described in detail the challenge we have encountered during the design of the generator, presented our solutions for this challenges and possibilities for improvement.
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