Square-Wave-Fed Hybrid Symmetrical Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier for High-Voltage DC Power Supplies

Voltage multiplier (VM) circuits are widely used in high-voltage DC power supplies. Traditional VMs are typically fed by sinusoidal voltages delivered by a resonant converter coupled with a high-voltage step-up transformer. This paper explores a transformerless solution, achieved by feeding the VM directly with the inverter's square wave output voltage. Although requiring additional multiplier stages to get the same output voltage level, this configuration simplifies the implementation and allows the elimination of the first smoothing capacitor, making it potentially suitable for size- and weight-sensitive applications. The performance and feasibility of the square-wave-fed hybrid VM are evaluated, and it is demonstrated that lower output voltage ripple and drop and better system dynamic response are achieved with this approach.