Nanosecond high voltage pulses can be exploited in many areas, such as food processing, biomedical engineering, medical applications, or LiDAR systems. However, nowadays research is limited by the capabilities of current pulse generators, that commonly cannot achieve fast enough switching times or high enough voltage, in the case of solid-state generators. Furthermore, their dependence on the load impedance, in the case of resonant-based topologies, constraints their application area. In this paper, a solid-state multilevel generator featuring GaN power transistors is proposed in order to overcome the current design challenges. The proposed topology can improve the research around the effects of nanosecond pulsed electric field in a vast range of applications, and current LiDAR systems resolution and accuracy. A proof-of-concept prototype is built in order to verify the viability of this proposal.
