$1.5M SBIR Contract for Marx Generators

1,000,000 V Applied Physical Electronics, LC of Austin, TX received a firm, fixed price contract estimated at $1.5 million for Small Business Innovation Research re: their Marx Generators. In the words of Russ Graham: “Imagine a device that charges up from a 35 KV supply and discharges 2.6 MV at over 10,000 Amps this all happens in less than 25 nS (billionths of a second).” Marx generators are mainly used to simulate the effect of lightning on technical high voltage components, though they can also serve as the power source for other systems such as EMP generators, electron/ion accelerators, and flash x-ray machines. This was a sole-source contract initiated on Jan. 18, 2005. Work will be performed in Austin, TX and is expected to be complete July 1, 2008. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, AL issued the contract (W9113M-05-C-0192).