Compact High-Voltage AC Generator with Pulse Transformer for High-Frequency Irreversible Electroporation (H-FIRE)

This paper is focused on a design of a high-voltage (HV) generator, which is proposed for a high-frequency irreversible electroporation (H-FIRE). The generator produces bursts of bipolar symmetrical pulses. Most HV sources used for cell electroporation are based on a controlled discharge of a capacitor into a resistive load. This solution is very simple, but it is associated with a certain risk of an uncontrolled discharge of the capacitor. We present a different type of the generator, where a DC-AC inverter with pulse transformer is used and where the mentioned risk is eliminated. Our generator is able to deliver bursts with variable length from 50 to 150 μs and a gap between bursts can be set from 0.5 to 1.5 s. Pulse frequency can be varied from 65 to 470 kHz and the output voltage is controlled in two ranges from 0 to 1.3 kV or from 0 to 2.5 kV. Results are presented with resistive load and with tissue impedance load.