Effect of the Capacitance Distribution on the Output Impedance of the Half-Wave Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier

High voltages are typically generated by voltage multipliers that consist of several multiplying stages, where each stage is composed of a few capacitors and diodes. The Half-Wave Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier is probably the most common multiplier. We compare different methods of capacitance distribution in the Half-Wave Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier and show that the output impedance can be decreased by more than three times compared to the case of the most commonly used method, i.e., the equal capacitance throughout all stages, and a higher output voltage is consequently gained (while yet using an equal total capacitance). For example, our experiment displayed a voltage increase from 5.8 kV to 9.7 kV across the load when the capacitance distributions were changed and the voltage multiplier was split into two sections.