Electronic – Low ESL Capacitor Types

capacitorhigh voltageinductance

I'm trying to make a Marx Generator with a fast rise time (~5 ns). One analysis of the generator's design shows that the largest factor inhibiting the rise time of the generator is the inductance of the capacitors.

My question is: Is there a general design or type of capacitor with low equivalent series inductance (ESL)? General answers are good to have, but a thought towards high-voltage applications would be especially appreciated.

Best Answer

X2Y capacitors are available from various manufacturers, the MLC structure has three plates, and two of them can be paralleled which cuts back on the ESL (kind of like two inductors in parallel).

The Layout will also affect your application as vias and a few nH of inductance. A spice simulation might help find out how much inductance the circuit can tolerate by adding board and component parasitics.

The voltage rating can be increased with the capacitors in a series configuration if needed but the inductance also increases. A parallel\serial configuration might be solve both problems.

Regular Capacitor parasitics look like this:

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab