An efficient circuit design for nanosecond pulse generation for electroporation applications

• Main Authors: Ganesan, Selvakumar, Taneja, Ashu, Saluja, Nitin
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cell membranes; Circuit design; Electric fields; Electric pulses; Electroporation; Harmonic distortion; High voltages; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Marx generators; Nanosecond pulses; Pulse duration; Semiconductor devices
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0102325

The application of high voltage, short duration electric pulses to the cell membranes and tissues increase their permeability by creating temporary pores within the cell membranes and tissues. It stimulates the delivery of extracellular materials into the cell, finding diverse applications in medicine for drug delivery and treatment of tumor. This phenomenon of physical transfection is known as electroporation. This paper presents an efficient circuit design for the generation of nanosecond pulses for electroporation applications. A Marx generator with two stages of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT), resistors and capacitors are used in the proposed circuit in order to induce optimized pulses that produce enough electric field for obtaining high voltage across the load. In this circuit, high voltage (100V) nanosecond pulses are generated with different pulse width 10ns, 2ns and 1ns. By varying the number of IGBT stages, different nano second pulses can be generated for different applications of electroporation. The proposed design approach aims to produce controlled electric pulses in the nano-second range with reduced switching losses and harmonic distortion.