Design of a Novel Gate Driver Circuit for a Marx
Generator Based 40kV Electric Fence Energizer
Fatima Munir, Reeja Iqbal, Maryam Minhas and Tanveer Abbas
Department of Electrical Engineering
Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Science, PIEAS Islamabad, Pakistan
fatimamunir92@yahoo.com, tanveer@pieas.edu.pk
Abstract—Marx generator is a High Voltage Pulsed Power
Supply (HVPPS) technique that consists of switches and
capacitors. This paper considers design of a Marx generator
consisting of 100 stages for a 40kV non- lethal electric fence. The
gate drivers for the employed semiconductor switches have to
meet the requirements of synchronized switching and high
voltage isolation up to 40kV. Gate driver schemes generally used
for Marx generators employ optocouplers and pulse
transformers. To meet the requirements, these schemes result in
costly, bulky and complex circuits when implemented for a large
number of stages of a Marx generator making it an unattractive
choice for low power applications (such as an electric fence)
despite its many superior features over other HVPPS schemes.
Electric fence application has an additional requirement of
controlled release of energy to the output to ensure non-lethal
behavior. Therefore, a novel gate driver design is presented here
which is compact, economical and also ensures control over
output energy, hence making Marx generator an attractive
design option for electric fence applications. The proposed novel
gate drivers were simulated and implemented in hardware for
100 stages to generate 40kV pulses of 15μs at repetition rate of
100Hz with each pulse delivering up to 18mJ energy. The
reliability of the systems was tested for a successful continuous
run of 10 hours.
Keywords— Marx generator; gate driver; non-lethal electric
fence; pulsed power supply
I. INTRODUCTION
Marx generator is a well-known High Voltage Pulsed
Power Supply (HVPPS) scheme that employs combination of
switches and capacitors to generate a high voltage output pulse
from a low voltage DC supply [1]. Marx generators are used
in a variety of applications such as UWB radar systems [2],
microwave and x-ray generation [3], Plasma Source Ion
Implantation (PSII) [4]-[5], ion acceleration [6], water
treatment, food processing and air pollution control [7].
For high power applications, Marx generator is
implemented using spark-gap switches, while some
implementations use semiconductor switches as well. When a
Marx generator is implemented using semiconductor switches,
the gate driver circuits for the switches contribute heavily
to the system cost and complexity. Therefore, it is generally
not used for non-lethal electric fence or other low power
applications due to its hardware complexity, cost and
bulkiness. Our work, however, considers Marx generator for
non-lethal electric fencing application due to its superiority
978-1-5090-3552-6/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
over other pulsed power supplies and focuses on a compact
gate driver design to make Marx generator an attractive choice
for such low power high voltage applications. The gate
drivers’ design for a Marx generator requires meeting
challenging requirements such as synchronized switching and
high voltage isolation. Conventional gate drivers such as
transformers and optocouplers are capable of providing
required level of isolation and can be used to drive Marx
generator switches [8]- [9] but in applications with large
number of stages, their use in every stage results in complex
and bulky circuits.
This paper introduces a novel gate driver design that
consists of passive components such as diodes, capacitors and
resistors to meet the requirements of high voltage isolation and
synchronized switching with reduced cost and more
compactness. Thus, with reduced hardware complexity of its
gate driver, Marx generator can be considered as a potential
option for low power high voltage applications, such as non-
lethal electric fencing, as well. The proposed design was tested
through simulations as well as on 100 stages of hardware for a
40kV electric fence. Successful demonstration of the novel
idea is presented here.
Remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section II
explains basic working of a Marx generator and briefly
discusses requirement analysis and component selection for its
design. Section III explains challenges in gate driver design
for Marx generator and gives literature survey of its generally
used gate driver schemes and then finally introduces a novel
gate driver design based on passive components. Section IV
presents simulation results and discusses hardware
implementation while section V deals with the testing of the
overall system. Section VI concludes the paper.
II. MARX GENERATOR AS A FENCE ENERGIZER
Marx generator is an HVPPS scheme based on the
principle of voltage multiplication. Its circuit is a repetition of
identical units each comprising of an energy storage element
and a switch. Fig. 1 shows a semiconductor devices based
Marx generator consisting of cascaded identical stages, with
each stage containing a switch and a capacitor, and connected
to the next stage through a pair of diodes. Its working is
explained as follows.
A. Working of Marx Generator
The circuit operates in two phases to give an output
voltage equal to number of stages times the input voltage.
 Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of Marx generator
During the first (charging) phase, switches are off and diodes
are forward biased to connect the capacitors in parallel,
charging them to input voltage. The charging current path is
shown in Fig. 1 by dashed blue lines. During the second
(discharging) phase, diodes are reverse biased and the
switches are turned on in a synchronized manner due to which
capacitors get connected in series and cumulatively give a
high voltage output pulse across load [10]. The discharging
current path is shown by solid green lines. The detailed
working of upper and lower diodes is given below.
For an input supply of 400V, the capacitors are charged to
the DC input voltage of 400V. As shown in Fig. 2, when the
switch S1 is turned on, the positive terminal of capacitor C1
(charged to 400V) gets connected to ground (through S1) due
to which its negative terminal voltage drops to –400 V. As a
result, diode D1’, with its cathode connected to ground and
anode connected to –400V, gets reversed biased. Similarly,
when switch S2 is turned on, the positive terminal of second
capacitor C2 (charged to 400V) gets connected to node b at –
400V through switch S2 due to which its negative terminal
voltage drops to –800V. As a result, the anode of diode D1 gets
connected to –400V thus reverse biasing it. In this way, during
discharging, turning on of S1 and S2 reverse biases D1’ and D1
respectively, connecting C1 and C2 in series.
B. Requirement Analysis and Component Analysis
As mentioned in the introduction, the Marx generator
discussed here has its application in non-lethal electric fencing
system as an energizer which is the most important part of the
fencing system and generates high voltage output pulses.
Therefore, design of Marx generator as a fence energizer
Fig. 2. Turning on and off of Marx generator diodes
involves requirements of high output voltage (40kV), pulse
rate up to 100Hz (variable), pulse duration between 1μs and
15μs (variable) and control over release of output energy
(18mJ per pulse). To meet these design requirements, FR305
diodes, IRF840 MOSFET switches, and electrolytic capacitors
with voltage rating of 450V and capacitance of 10μF are
selected. Moreover, the input inductor is required to have
inductance value of 100mH, peak current rating of 6A and
RMS current rating of 3.5A. It also needs to have high voltage
insulation between its terminals and layers of windings. A
detailed requirement analysis and complete design of Marx
generator for electric fencing are presented in a separate paper
[11].
III. GATE DRIVER DESIGN
Marx generator circuit employs large number of
semiconductor switches when designed as a fence energizer.
Therefore, design of gate driver for MOSFET switches is a
major concern in this regard.
A. Requirements
In Marx generator, switches are assembled such that their
source voltage keeps building up with each successive stage.
For example, as shown in Fig. 1, when S1 is turned on, its
drain gets connected to ground and the voltage at source of
switch S2 drops to –400V. Similarly, when switch S2 is turned
on, its drain gets connected to the node at –400V and the
voltage at source of switch S3 drops to –800V. In this way,
when all the switches are turned on, the voltage at the source
of last switch S100 drops to –39.6kV. Thus, turning on of the
last switch requires a gate voltage with respect to –39.6 kV
which demands a gate driver that is designed to provide
voltage isolation as high as 39.6 kV. Moreover, the required
voltage isolation is different for different stages and design of
gate driver for each stage would result in high design cost.
Synchronized switching is another critical requirement to
maximize power efficiency and to obtain complete output
pulse. As shown in Fig. 3, if switch S1 is turned on while
switch S2 is off, anode of diode D1 gets connected to 400V
and its cathode gets connected to 0V, as a result of which the
capacitor C2 gets a path to discharge through diode D1 and
switch S1. In this way, unsynchronized switching can result in
loss of power efficiency. Moreover, if any of the Marx
generator switch remains off during discharging time, the
voltage of its corresponding capacitor will not add up.
Therefore, switching must be synchronized to obtain a
complete output pulse.
Another important requirement that is related to an electric
fence energizer is control over release of energy during output
pulse. Moreover, the system must be efficient enough to
continue its operation for several hours in absence of an input
power supply.
The requirements for gate driver design of Marx generator
(as a fence energizer) are summarized as follows:
• High voltage isolation
• Synchronized switching
• Controlled release of output energy
• Compactness of design and high efficiency
B. Related Work
The gate driver schemes that are used for Marx generators
based on semiconductor switches use either optocouplers or
pulse transformers. A couple of related designs are discussed
here.
In [8], a self-supplied gate driver is presented. As the name
suggests, the Marx generator circuit itself provides power to
this gate driver. It has an optocoupler based design, as shown in
Fig. 4. When the switch S is off, the capacitor CP is charged to
zener voltage which then provides power to optic receiver and
gate driver for their operation. This scheme also employs a
resistor R to limit charging current and a diode D that prevents
discharging of capacitor during on-state of the switch.
In another gate driver scheme, presented in [9], a full bridge
inverter generates dc pulses which are fed to pulse transformer
TX1 to drive the gate of Marx generator switches, as shown in
Fig. 5. When a positive pulse is applied, the main switch
(IGBT) is turned on due to current through switch M1 and the
voltage appearing across resistor R7. To turn the main switch
off, negative pulse is applied during which capacitor C2 is
discharged to stop M1 from conducting thereby discharging the
gate capacitance of the main switch through BJTs Q2, Q3 and
Q4.
The abovementioned gate drivers are suitable for high
power pulsed generators that use high power rating switches
Fig. 3. Discharging of capacitor due to unsynchronized switching
Fig. 4. Self-supplied gate driver circuit [8]
and diodes, and large capacitors to store high amount of
charge. But for low power applications such as electric fence
energizer, that use low power rating MOSFETs and diodes, and
small capacitors (10μF), gate drivers with optocouplers or
pulse transformers would dominate in circuit cost and
complexity. Thus, the existing gate driver schemes make Marx
generator an unattractive design option for electric fence
energizer due to which it has never been tried as fence
energizer before. Therefore a novel gate driver based on
passive components such as diodes, capacitors and resistors has
been proposed and implemented that provides a compact and
economical solution to problems relating high voltage isolation
and synchronized switching.
C. Proposed Gate Driver Design
The Marx generator circuit with novel gate driver design is
shown in Fig. 6. The proposed scheme employs one active
driver (optocoupler) to drive the first switch S1 and passive
drivers to turn on/off the rest of the switches S2 - S100. Each
passive driver comprises a zener diode Zn connected in series
with a diode (with opposite polarity), a gate capacitor Cgn,
and a diode Dgn connected between gate and source of the
corresponding switch. The components constituting the first
passive gate driver (second stage) are encircled in Fig. 6. The
gate driver creates gate to source potential difference to turn
on the corresponding switch by pulling down its source to a
negative voltage with respect to its gate voltage.
Initially, the capacitor Cgn is charged at 0V. When first
switch S1 is turned on by an active driver, source of second
switch S2 drops to –400V due to which zener Z1 of voltage
rating Vgs gets reverse biased and discharges the gate
Fig. 5. Pulse transformer based gate driver circuit [9]
 Fig. 6. Marx generator circuit with novel gate driver design
capacitor Cg1 to –(400–Vgs) volts, thus developing the
required gate to source voltage Vgs to turn the second switch
on. In this way, the zener Z1 limits this gate to source
voltage Vgs below a safe limit. The node voltages at gate and
source of second switch are shown in Fig. 6. On the other
hand, when the first switch is turned off, the diode D1’ gets
forward biased, connecting the source of second switch to
ground. As a result, the anode of diode Dg1 also gets
connected with ground while its cathode is at –(400–Vgs)
volts thus forward biasing the diode. This enables the charging
of gate capacitor Cg1 to 0V, thus turning off the switch S2.
The diode connected in series with zener gets reverse biased
during charging of gate capacitor to block forward current
surge through zener.
In the above gate driver scheme, the negative charging
voltage of gate capacitor increases with every stage. For
example, as shown in Fig. 6, the first gate capacitor Cg1 is
charged at –(400–Vgs) volts, the second gate capacitor Cg2 is
charged at –(800–Vgs) volts and last gate capacitor Cg100 is
charged at –(39.6–Vgs) volts. Consequentially, the voltage
rating of gate capacitor increases with every stage. Moreover,
the increased negative voltage results in higher forward surge
current through diodes Dgn during charging of gate capacitor.
To address these problems, the circuit has been modified
by connecting the terminal of gate capacitor, connected to
ground, with source of previous stage instead, as shown in
Fig. 7. Modification in gate drivers of Marx generator circuit
Fig. 7. As a result, the maximum potential difference across
any gate capacitor is limited to approximately 400V. In this
way, this proposed configuration gives a reliable solution to
problem of gate capacitor’s voltage rating. Now, the problem
of surge current through gate capacitor arises. It is due to the
absence of some controlling element that the gate capacitors
tend to charge and discharge quickly resulting in flow of huge
surge currents. Fig. 8 shows waveforms of such currents in
different colors simulated for few initial stages. This problem
has been solved by connecting a resistance in series with gate
capacitor that limits the surge current through it, as shown in
Fig. 9.
The selection of gate capacitor involves its voltage rating,
current rating and capacitance. For DC input supply of 400V,
the voltage rating of capacitor is selected to be 450V. The
current through gate capacitor is now given by 400V/Rn. With
a resistance of 1kŸ, the current rating of capacitor comes out to
be 400V/1000Ÿ=0.4A. The value of its capacitance should be
high enough so that it may not get discharged due to leakage
current of diode resulting in turning off of switch before time.
But, if the capacitance is too high, huge surge current will flow
through the circuit during charging and discharging of gate
capacitor. Therefore, capacitance of gate capacitor is optimized
through simulations to be 1000pF. The zener is selected to be
of 10V so that the maximum gate to source voltage across any
switch remains limited to 10V. As shown in Fig 7, the
 Fig. 8. Surge current waveforms of gate capacitor Fig. 10. Output pulse waveform across 100 stages in simulation

maximum reverse voltage across diode Dg1 is equal to the gate
to source voltage which is 10V. Moreover, the diode Dg1 and
the diode connected in series with zener must be fast recovery
diodes. So, they are selected to be FR305.
A unique feature of the proposed gate driver is that it
provides better control on transfer of electrical energy to the
output. It is designed in such a way that the zener regulates the
gate to source voltage up to 10 V. Therefore, when the Marx
generator capacitor that is charged to VC (400V) tends to
discharge more than 6V, the gate to source voltage drops
below the threshold value of 4V and the switch gets turned
off. Thus, it is the inherent feature of this gate driver design
that the capacitors can discharge a maximum voltage of 6V
only with a zener diode of 10V in the gate driver circuit i.e.
the capacitor voltage cannot fall below (VC–6) volts. This
results in controlled release of energy per pulse. If n is the
number of stages, Cmarx is the capacitance of Marx generator
capacitors and Vdischarge is the maximum voltage that the
capacitors can discharge, then the maximum deliverable value
of energy Edelivered becomes,
ͳ potential difference across inductor and to provide a
ଶ
ୢୣ୪୧୴ୣ୰ୣୢ ൌ  ൬ ൈ ୫ୟ୰୶ ൈ ୢ୧ୱୡ୦ୟ୰୥ୣ ൰ൈ
ʹ was connected in parallel to the inductor with its cathode
ͳ directed towards the input supply.
ୢୣ୪୧୴ୣ୰ୣୢ ൌ  ൬ ሺͳͲି଻ ሻሺ͸ሻଶ ൰ ͳͲͲ ൌ ͳͺ

ʹ
Thus, the maximum delivered energy is 18mJ per pulse
for 10μF capacitance in each of the 100 stages. This value of
energy is well below the lethal limit of 5J [12] and makes the
overall system suitable for non-lethal electric fencing and
other high voltage low power applications.
IV. SIMULATIONS AND HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
The passive gate driver circuit was simulated in LTspice.
The parameters such as gate to source voltage, and charging
and discharging current waveforms of gate capacitor with
reference to control pulse were observed through simulations.
The final output pulse of 40kV produced by 100 stages, with
each stage at 400V, is shown in Fig. 10.
The Marx generator circuit with proposed gate driver was
implemented on 4 single sided PCB sheets of A4 size with
each PCB having a modular design and containing 24 stages
equally distributed in eight rows. In order to prevent the direct
connection of input power supply to the highly negative node
of the last stage, an input inductor was introduced between the
two. Its windings were protected from insulation breakdown
by distributing the turns in four layers with fish paper
introduced between every two layers. It is explained in more
detail in a separate paper [11]. Moreover, to prevent
overcharging of Marx generator capacitors due to high
discharging current path of inductor, a free-wheeling diode
V. TESTING AND RESULTS
The proposed design was tested by measuring the output
voltage using capacitive voltage divider. Its waveform is
shown in Fig. 11. The working of Marx generator was further
tested by air breakdown test on spark gaps. This test was

Fig. 9. Marx generator circuit with modified passive gate drivers

 Fig. 11. Output pulse waveform across 100 stages of hardware
performed at pulse rates between 1Hz and 100 Hz for different
pulse durations in range of 1μs to 15μs. Air breakdown in a
10mm spark-gap is shown in Fig. 12. The system was
successfully run for more than 10 hours in the lab and was
found to be reliable. The final assembly of Marx generator
with proposed gate drivers is shown in Fig. 13.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The gate drivers for the semiconductors in Marx generator
are major contributors to its cost and hardware complexity.
This paper highlights the gate driver design issues and then
addresses them. In this regard, a novel, compact and cost-
effective passive gate driver has been designed for Marx
generator based 40kV pulsed power supply. It employs
capacitors and diodes to provide and maintain gate to source
voltage with required protection and fulfills the requirements
of high voltage isolation and synchronized switching. Its
unique feature is control on release of electrical energy that
doesn't exceed 18mJ per pulse. The compactness of this gate
driver makes Marx generator a potential choice for non-lethal
electric fencing and other low power applications where
controlled transfer of energy is required. After the validation
of proposed design through simulations in LTspice, PCBs are
designed using Proteus. When implemented in hardware for
100 stages, it generates 40kV pulses of 15μs at repetition rate
up to 100Hz. These results have been validated through air
breakdown tests. Moreover, the system was run for several
hours that ensured the reliability of design.
REFERENCES
[1] Thrimawithana, Duleepa J. A novel electric fence energizer: design
and analysis. Diss. ResearchSpace@ Auckland, 2008.
Fig. 13. Marx generator final assembly
Fig. 12. Air breakdown in 10mm spark gap
[2] Carey, W. J., and J. R. Mayes. "Marx generator design and
performance." Power Modulator Symposium. 2002.
[3] Sharma, Archana, et al. "Development and characterization of
repetitive 1-kj marx-generator-driven reflex triode system for high-
power microwave generation." IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
39.5 (2011): 1262-1267.
[4] Redondo, L. M., et al. "All Silicon Marx-bank topology for high-
voltage, high-frequency rectangular pulses." 2005 IEEE 36th Power
Electronics Specialists Conference. IEEE, 2005.
[5] Kim, J. H., Ryu, M. H.,Shenderey, S., Kim, J. S., Rim, G. H.,
"Semiconductor switches based pulse power generator for plasma source
ion implantation", in Power Modulator Symposium,,2004.
[6] Kawamura, Y., K. Toyoda, and M. Kawai. "Generation of relativistic
photoelectrons induced by excimer laser irradiation." Applied Physics
Letters45.4 (1984): 307-309
[7] Smulders, Erwin HWM, Bert EJM Van Heesch, and Sander SVB Van
Paasen., "Pulsed power corona discharges for air pollution control",
IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 26.5, 1998, pp.1476- 1484
[8] Wu, Yifan, et al. "Repetitive and high voltage Marx generator using
solid-state devices." IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical
Insulation 14.4 (2007): 937-940.
[9] Ryoo, H. J., et al. "Current loop gate driver circuit for pulsed power
supply based on semiconductor switches." Plasma Science, 2007.
ICOPS 2007. IEEE 34th International Conference on. IEEE, 2007.
[10] Thrimawithana, Duleepa J. A novel electric fence energizer: design
and analysis. Diss. ResearchSpace@ Auckland,2008.Kk
[11] Maryam Minhas, Reeja Iqbal, Fatima Munir and Tanveer Abbas,
“Design and Development of a Marx Generator Based 40kV Pulsed
Power Supply for Non-lethal Electric Fence” in proceedings of
International Conference on Emerging Technologies, Pakistan, 2016.
[12] De Martino, Marcelo Giovanni B., Fernando S. Dos Reis, and
Guilherme AD Dias. "An electric fence energizer design method." 2006
IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics. Vol. 2. IEEE,
2006.