The CockcroftWalton Voltage Multiplying Circuit

Edgar Everhart and Paul Lorrain

Citation: Review of Scientific Instruments 24, 221 (1953); doi: 10.1063/1.1770669
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THE REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

VOLUME 24. NUMBER 3

MARCH. 1953

The Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multiplying Circuit*

EDGAR EVERHART,

Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut

AND

PAUL LORRAIN,

Institut de Physique, Universite de Montreal, Montreal, Canada

(Received July 17, 1952)

. The c?nventional Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplying circuit is studied considering it as a transmission

It IS sho~ that, even when no direct current is drawn from the high voltage electrode, there is an
Importa?-t.loss In output voltage caused by circulating currents in the stray capacitances. This loss of
voltage I~ Indepe~dent of th~ sup~ly frequency. Formulas are developed for the voltage efficiency resulting
from a glVen chOIce of capacitor size and number of stages.
Two modifications of the Coc~croft-Walton circuit which improve the voltage efficiency are suggested
and analyzed. The first of these Involves a loading coil at the high voltage end of the line. The second involves the addition of inductors in series with each of the capacitors of the circuit.
~ne.

I. INTRODUCTION

It will be shown that the voltage efficiency can then be

made practically unity even with low Q inductors.
The drop in output voltage which occurs when a
direct current is drawn from the high voltage terminal
is not discussed.

HE circuit of a four-stage Cockcroft-Walton high

voltage generatorl - 4 is shown in Fig. 1.
The circuit multiplies, rectifies, and filters the alternating voltage supplied by S. Under ideal conditions
i.e., when the capacitors shown are large and when n~
current is drawn from the high voltage terminal the
high voltage is nearly equal to the product of the
number of rectifiers multiplied by the peak voltage
at S. The circuit is extensively used for obtaining
voltages from a few thousand to a few million volts for
television equipment, for particle accelerators, and for
many other uses.
It is frequently advantageous, for reasons of cost and
size, to use a fairly large number of stages. 3 4 However
with many stages, the stray shunt capacitances allo~
alternating currents to flow in the series capacitances.
These currents have the effect of lowering the output
voltage and of increasing the ripple even under no load.
It will be shown that this effect is independent of the
frequency.
The purpose of this paper is first to analyze the
conventional Cockcroft-Walton circuit and to calculate
the factor F, termed the voltage efficiency, by which the
actual output voltage under no load will differ from
the ideal value given above. The analysis will then be
extended to show that a low voltage efficiency can be
largely corrected by the use of a properly chosen loading
coil at the high voltage end of the circuit. Finally, an
alternative modification will be analyzed in which inductors are placed in series with each of the capacitors.
* This work 'Yas ~upported in part by a Frederick Gardner
Co!trell. Grant-In-Ai~ by The Research Corporation to the
Umverslty of Connecticut and by a grant of the Canadian Atomic
Energy Control Board to the Unillersite de Montreal
1 J. D. Cockcroft and E. T. S. Walton, Proc. Roy. Soc. (London)
136A, 619 (1932).
2 A. Bouwers and A. Kuntke, Z. tech. Physik 18 209 (1937).
I P. Lorrain, Rev. Sci. lnstr. 20, 216 (1949).
'
4 At the Pasadena meeting of the Am. Inst. Elec. Engrs. (June
19~O), J. R. Woodyard, University of California (Berkley), de~bed ~ very successful 500 kv circuit with 26 stages. He has
kindly glven a set of engineering notes describing this machine to
the authors.

II. THE CONVENTIONAL COCKCROFT-WALTON

CIRCUIT

Figure 2 shows a transmission line which is equivalent

to the circuit of Fig. 1 under no load. Although shown
with only four stages, it is intended to be representative
of a circuit with N rectifiers. Here C is the total effective
shunt capacitance per stage and includes the rectifier
and other stray capacitances. Each of the series capacitors is taken to be a multiple b2 of the shunt capacitor C.
The capacitances 2b2C at each end of the line are
chosen in order that the line can be considered as a
number of identical "T sections". The one at the righthand end is really immaterial here, since it is in series
with an infinite impedance. It will be used only in Part
III. These end capacitors have to withstand only
half as much voltage as the others.
The current and voltage in the nth loop are given by 6

i(n, t)=A exp(jwt-'Yn)+B exp(jwt+'Yn)

(1)

and

v(n, t) =Z.[A exp(jwt-'Yn)- B exp(jwt+'Yn)].

I-----'-~

(2)

t--...I---1.--II--........-~ H.V.

FIG. 1. Conventional Cockcroft-Walton circuit with four stages.

See, for example, J. C. Slater, Microwave Transmission
(McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1942).

221
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222

E. EVERHART AND

P. LORRAIN

where Vo is the rms alternating input voltage. Equation

(2) can be used to find Vo in terms of A and B. Thus
Vo= IZc(A - B) I.

(13)

Using Eqs. (5) and (7), this becomes

Vo= (A/wbC) [l+exp( -2'YN)].

(14)

We shall call the voltage efficiency F the ratio of the

output voltage V to the ideal output voltage V'.
Combining Eqs. (4), (11), (12), and (14), we obtain

F=
FIG. 2. Transmission line equivalent to a conventional four-stage
Cockcroft-Walton circuit under no load.

b[l-exp( - 2'YN)]

V'

N[1+exp(-2'YN)]

= (b/N) tanh(N/b).

The propagation constant "'I is real and is given by

(3)
As b2 is of the order of several hundred in practical circuits, we have very nearly
"'1=

l/b.

(4)

To this same close approximation, the characteristic

impedance Zc, which is imaginary, is given by
Zc=l/jwbC.

(5)

The impedance Zn=v(n, t)/i(n, t) at the nth loop is

found using Eqs. (1), (2), and (5). Thus
1 1- (B/ A) exp(2'Yn)
Z,,=-'
.
jwbC 1+ (B/A) exp(2'Yn)

(6)

Since the line shown in Fig. 2 is open at the Nth loop,

ZN is infinite. This determines the ratio B/ A for this

This function 6 is plotted as the lower curve on Fig. 3.

rt is a valuable guide for the selection of the proper size
of the series capacitors for a given stray shunt capacitance and a given number of stages.
It is important to note that the above result is independent of the frequency. Whether a low or a high
frequency is used, the series capacitances must be very
much larger than the stray shunt capacitance per stage.
We shall now calculate the input impedance Zoo This
quantity is required for the design of the input transformer. Setting n=O in Eq. (6) and using Eqs. (4) and
(7), we find
(16)
Zo= (1/ jwbC) coth(N /b).
For selecting the proper type capacitors, one must
know the alternating currents which have to be passed.
It can easily be shown that the capacitors which are
closest to ground carry the largest currents. The input
current can be found from Eq. (16) as follows:

circuit. Thus, applying Eq. (6), we find

B/A= -exp( -2'YN).

io=jwbCvo/coth(N/b).

(7)

In order to calculate the output voltage V, we must

add the magnitudes of the peak alternating voltages
2i e" appearing across each rectifier. From Fig. 2, it is
seen that
(8)
e,,= (in-l-i n)/ jwC.
Since all the currents are in the same phase,
V =21 L le .. 1=21 L I (in-l-in)/ jwCI
=2 1 1 (io-i N )/ jwCI

(IS)

(9)

When a direct current is drawn from the high voltage

1.0-,-~=------------,

0.9
... 0.8
z~ Q7

~ 0.6
...~ 0.5

... 0.4
ClI

~ 0.3
~

Substituting from Eq. (1) into Eq. (9), we have

(17)

02

> QI

V=(2 i /wC)[A+B-A exp(-'YN)-Bexp('YN)]. (10)

o ;-----+----+----~
o

Using now Eq. (7),

V=2 1(A/wC)[1-exp( -2'YN)].

(11)

We next compare the actual output voltage given by

Eq. (11) with the ideal output voltage given by
V'=2INvo,

(12)

FIG. 3. Dependence of the voltage efficiency F on the number

of stages and the capacitor ratio.
S While this paper was in preparation, we discussed this formula
with Professor J. R. Woodyard (reference 3) and learned that he
has also obtained the same result.

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CO C K R 0 F T - W A L TON

VOL TAG EMU L TIP L YIN G C I R CUI T

tenninal, the charge transfer in the series capacitances

causes a voltage drop and also a ripple which approximates a square wave. To make these small, the product
of frequency and series capacitance must be high
enough.2 However, even under no load, there is a ripple
voltage at the output. This second type of ripple is
sinusoidal and is due to the circulating currents in the
series and shunt capacitors.
The second type of ripple as well as the fundamental
component of the first type can be eliminated as shown
in Fig. 4(a). When the secondary of the exciting transfonner is grounded at the proper point, the alternating
voltage between PI and P 2 cancels that between P2
and P a Figure 4(b) shows an alternative circuit in which
a derippling voltage of proper amplitude and phase is
inserted as shown. 7
III. IMPROVEMENT WITH A LOADING COIL

As can be seen from the lower curve of Fig. 3, the

voltage efficiency F would be unity if b2 were infinite,
i.e., if there were no stray shunt capacitances. It is
possible to neutralize these shunt capacitances by connecting inductors of the proper value in parallel with
each rectifier. Of course, blocking condensers must then
be used to prevent the inductors from shorting the
rectifiers. 8 However, this solution is not a practical one
because it introduces large ohmic losses in the inductors
and because it makes the circuit much more expensive
and bulky.
A very good compromise is to connect at the high
voltage end of the circuit a single loading coil of the
proper inductance, as shown in Fig. 5. This inductor
has the effect of preventing the drop in alternating

223

bC
~

2bzC

1m"c
'Tj l-q :

2b 2 C

~r

0--"--1

H.V.

H~f-H~--o

~'

bC

b2 C

FIG. 5. Transmission line equivalent to a Cockcroft-Walton circuit

with a loading coil and under no load.

voltage across the line at the high voltage end, thus

increasing the high voltage output.
It will be noticed that the secondary of the input
transformer is grounded at its center tap and that the
high voltage terminal is connected to the center tap of
the loading coil. This is done for the following two
reasons. First, the alternating voltage with respect to
ground at the input is reduced by a factor of 2, which
is advantageous if the input voltage is so high that
corona is liable to occur. Second, due to the symmetry
of the circuit, there is no ripple at the output at no
load, i.e., all ripple of the second type is eliminated.
The fundamental of the ripple of the first type can also
be eliminated by moving either tap off center by an
amount best determined empirically. .
The analysis of the circuit of Fig. 5 is very similar to
that of Part II, and many of the equations found above
apply here as well. In this case, we set ZN= }wL in
Eq. (6) and solve for BI A. This gives

BIA=oexp(-2'YN),

(18)

0= (1 +w2bLc)/(1-w2bLC).

(19)

where
To find the output voltage V, we insert this value of
BI A into Eq. (10) to obtain
V = 2i(A/ wC)[l-exp( -'YN)][l-1i exp( -'YN)].
(0)

(20)

The ideal output voltage V'is found by substituting

Eq. (18) into Eqs. (12) and (13) and using for Zc the
value found previously in Eq. (5):
V' = 2!(N AIwbC)[l- 0 exp('-:' 2'YN)].

(21)

The above equations allow a calculation of the voltage

efficiency F for the case where a loading coil is used:
V'
F=V'
(b)

FIG. 4. Derippling circuits.

7 This second circuit was suggested by V. Wouk of Beta Electric
Company, New York City, private communication. It is similar
to one'used by J. R. Woodyard (reference 3) and to that used by
E. W. Titterton on the 1.2-Mev accelerator at the Australian
National University (Nucleonics, May 1952).

b[1-exp(-'YN)][1-5 exp(-'YN)]

. (22)

N[l- Ii exp( - 2'YN)]

The voltage efficiency F is now a function of Nib (which

equals 'YN) and o.
To find the optimum value of 0, we shall require that
the output voltage V be distributed as uniformly as
possible across the rectifiers, i.e., that the voltages en
across the rectifiers be as much as possible equal. The

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E. EVERHART AND

224

FlO. 6. Variation
of the alternating
voltage across the
rectifiers when a
loading coil is used.

10

-+-+-+~+-+-.+-+--+--.

ratio of the voltage across the nth rectifier to that across

the first one is found from Eqs. (1), (8), and (18).
We have

e"

-= (in-l-in)/(io-i 1)

el

exp[ -')I(n-l)]-Ii exp[ -')I(2N -n)]

(23)
1-0 exp[ -')I(2N-1)]

=G exp( --yn)+H exp(')In) ,

where G and H are functions of ')IN and 0 only.

The shape of the curve of en / el depends on the
respective signs of G and H. Since this ratio must be
positive for all n, G and H cannot both be negative. The
simplest and best case is that where both G and Hare
positive. The curve of en / el then has the shape shown
in Fig. 6. Since the voltage is high at the two ends, we
shall require that eN=el. Setting n Nand eN/el=l
in Eg. (23), we obtain the optimum value of Ii:

Oopt= -expC')IN).

(24)

When this value of 0 is substituted into Eq. (22), we

find that the voltage efficiency F when a loading coil is
used is given by
2b[1-exp(-')IN)]
F=------N[l+exp( -')IN)]

or, using Eq. (4),

F=(2b/N) tanh(N/2b).

(25)

The optimum inductance for the loading coil is found

by combining Eqs. (19) and (24) :

LoPt =(1/w2bC) coth(N/2b).

TABLE

I.

Number of stages
Shunt capacity/stage (approximate)
Series capacitors
b

Frequency
N/b
Loading coil
Voltage efficiency

(26)

N=24
C=5 p.p.f
b2C = 925 p.p.f
b=13.6
j=250kc
Nib = 1.78
L=8.45 mh
F=O.80

P. LORRAIN

The voltage efficiency F obtained with and without

the loading coil are compared in Fig. 3. It is seen that
if N /b can be made equal to or smaller than 0.5, the
voltage efficiency is high and there is no need of a loading coil. Very little is gained by further reducing N lb.
However, if the value of N /b lies between about 0.5
and 3, the loading coil increases the output voltage very
considerably. With N /b greater than about 3, the
voltage efficiency is low even with a loading coil.
A straightforward extension of the theory of this
section shows that, for large values of N /b, the voltage
efficiency can be further maintained by means of an
additional loading coil connected in shunt across the
center of the line and which has just half the inductance
of the loading coil at the end of the line.
Since b is the square root of the ratio of series to shunt
capacitance per stage, it is seen upon comparing Eqs.
(15) and (25) that the use of a loading coil allows one
to double the number of stages or to reduce the series
capacitances by a factor of four and still maintain the
same voltage efficiency.
The power dissipated in a loading coil of known "Q"
is readily calculated since the alternating voltage across
it is equal to the input alternating voltage. This is
usually not excessive, but must be allowed for in the
design. In some designs, it may be possible to use for the
loading coil the inductance presented by the primary
of a step-down transformer whose secondary could
serve as a convenient source of power for an ion source
at the high voltage terminal. 3
The input impedance and the input current for the
case where a loading coil is used can be found by comhining Eqs. (4), (6), (18), and (24), setting n=O:

Zo= (1/ jwbC) coth(N/2b)

(27)

io= jwbCvo/coth(N/2b).

(28)

and
The input impedance is capacitive. It is eqnal to the
impedance of the loading coil, whose inductance is given
by Eq. (26), but with the opposite sign.
Table I below shows design data for a SOO-kilovolt
rf Cockcroft-Walton accelerator under construction at
the University of Montreal. This circuit will use a
loading coil.
For comparison, the voltage efficiency of the same
design without the loading coil would be 0.53. For the
same components, the loading coil thus has the effect of
increasing the high voltage output by a factor of
0.80/0.53 or 1.5.
IV. EFFECT OF SERIES INDUCTORS IN THE
COCKCROFT~WALTON CIRCUIT

The drop in alternating voltage along the line can be

reduced if one can reduce the series impedance. An
obvious way to do this is to put an inductor L in series
with each capacitor as in Fig. 7. The resistance R shown
is that of the inductor. As in Part II, the ends of the

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CO C K R 0 F T - W A L TON VOL TAG EMU L TIP L YIN Gel R CUI T

225

line are chosen so that all sections of the line are

identical.
We examine first the special case R=O for which the
line is a simple band-pass filter. The low frequency limit
of the pass band occurs when w2b2CL= 1, where there
is no phase shift per section, and the high frequency limit
occurs when w2b2CL=4b2+1 with a phase shift of 11" per
section. Between these two limits, the phase shift y per
section is given by
(29)

This phase shift would cause no difficulty if the line

were terminated in a resistance equal to its characteristic impedance. This, however, would be a great waste
of power. The line we shalL consider is terminated in an
open circuit. If there were many sections with an
appreciable phase shift per section, there would be
standing waves set up on the unmatched line. This
would be quite undesirable since there would then be
no voltage across rectifiers located at the nodes. To
prevent this, the line must be much shorter electrically
than a quarter wavelength and y must be small. The
condition for this is found by expanding Eq. (29) for
small y:
Ny ~ (N jb)(wWCL-l)!1I"j2.
(30)

FIG. 7. Transmission line equivalent to a Cockcroft-Walton circuit

with series inductors under no load.

Thus, we have
(34)

,..=x(1+ j).

For small x, the characteristic impedance is found to be

(35)

Zc= (R/ jwC)!.

The input admittance for N sections is given by

Yo= (ljZc) tanh,..N
=(jwC/R)!tanh(Nx+jNx)
=Go+jB o.

(36)

From the input conductance Go given by Eq. (36), we

can now find the power P dissipated in the line. As
before, we set Vo to be the rms input alternating voltage:

Since b2 is large, this condition may not be difficult to

satisfy.
There are, however, no apparent disadvantages to
working just at the low frequency limit w2b2LC= 1 where
the above requirement is met regardless of the number
of sections or of the value of b2 At this limit, where the
series capacitors and inductors are in resonance, there is
no attenuation and phase shift and the output voltage
is equal to the ideal value, i.e., F= 1.
This conclusion makes it worth while to determine
the perturbing effect of the series resistance R. At the
frequency of interest, where

This expression is accurate to better than one percent

for xN~O.5. Using Eq. (31) and introducing the "Q" of
the inductor (replacing R by wLjQ), the power loss in
the line can be expressed in the more convenient form

(31)

(39)

the line shown in Fig. 7 reduces to that of Fig. 8.

We shall first compute the power dissipated in the
line of Fig. 8. This will determine a practical upper
limit for R and, hence, a lower limit for the Q of the
series inductors.
For the line shown, the propagation constant
'Y = x+ jy is given by

We next calculate the effect of the resistance R upon

the voltage efficiency F of the circuit of Fig. 8. An
accurate calculation is difficult here because the voltages
en are not all in phase as in Parts II and III. We can,
however, find a lower bound for the output voltage V
by neglecting the phase differences and remembering

cosh(x+ jy) = 1+ jwCRj2.

(32)

In a practical circuit, the attenuation constant x

must be much smaller than 1. The term y which is the
phase shift per section must also be small, as was shown
above.
Since x and yare small, we can expand the hyperbolic
cosine of Eq. (32) as a series and retain only the first
two terms, which gives us
x=y=(RwC/2)t.

(33)

sinh2xN - sin2xN
P=vo2G o=V02(WCj2R)t

(37)

cosh2xN+cos2xN

When xN = (RwC/2) iN is small, this expression simplifies to

(38)

.R..

J r :-.---"1~
'-1 U,J II 'l ~---.l...--I
R,

I)' J],:

11--'---':')

R'

FI

FIG. 8. Equivalent transmission line when series inductors

and capacitors are in resonance.

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226

E. EVERHART AND

This function is plotted as curve B in Fig. 9. It is

approximate in that the ideal voltage was taken to be
Nlell instead of Nlvol. To estimate the correction
factor, leli/lvo!, we note that lell<!vol and

1.0......----_;:::-------.,---,
u. 0..9

>- 0.8
~ 0..7

~ 0..6'

E 0.5
UJ

hl/lvol

...J

l-(lvol-leJ\)/lvol ~1-1 (vO-el)/vO\'

0.4

Referring to Fig. 8 and using Eqs. (33) and (36), we

have

til 0.3
;: 0.2
g

P. LORRAIN

0.1

I(vo-el)/vol = IYoR/2\ = (xI2') Itanh(Nx+ jNx) I

o..o.+------+----+------+-....
0..5

0.

1.0.

15

xN=

(R~C)2N

FIG. 9. Voltage efficiency F for the series-inductor circuit. Curve

A is plotted from the lower bound formula given in Eq. (43) and
curve B from the more accurate formula given in Eq. (45), The

points shown represent experimental values.

and the correction factor led / IVo I for Eq. (45) is

bounded as follows:

that

l2:e,,1 -<2:lenl.
We use Eqs. (1), (7), and (9) as before, but "( is now
given by Eq. (34) and is complex. The high voltage V
is now written

V>2 1 IA[1-exp( -2,,(N)JI jwCl.

(40)

Equations (12) and (13) are valid here and the

alternating input voltage Vo is given by

Vo= IA[1+exp( -2"(N)](RI jwC)!I.

rIDS

(41)

The voltage efficiency F is thus given by

F>(l/N) I(tanh,,(N)/(jRwC)!I,

(42)

1 (sinh22xN + sin22xN) i
F>21xN cosh2xN +cos2xN

(4J)

from which

The above function is plotted as curve A in Fig. 9.

It is equal to 1 within 2 percent for xN;;;;O.S. Since this
function is a lower bound, F is actually even closer to 1.
This result is rather surprising. One would expect
that the condition for a high voltage efficiency would be
xN 1. We have here a peculiar situation where the
incident and reflected waves combine to give an approximately constant voltage across the line despite the
attenuation.
A more accurate formula which does not neglect the
phase differences between the en's, but whose numerical
value is more difficult to calculate, can be found as
follows: We have
F:.<E lenl/Nlell.
(44)
o

Using Eqs. (1), (7), (8), and (34), and noting that
[exp( -"() -1]/[exp"(-1]= -exp( -"(),
we find

L \cosh[(N -n+ 1/2)(x+ jx)]

F=

NI cosh[(N -1/2)(x+ jx)JI

The magnitude of this complex hyperbolic tangent

passes through a maximum numerical value of 1.14 as
xN varies from zero to infinity. Using this number in the
above equation
I(vo-eNvoi ;;;;0.81x,

~~

1;;; Ieli/l vol >1-0.81x.

(46)

Since x is small in practicai circuits, this correction is

also small.
Equation (45) was checked experimentally using a
20-stage circuit of the type sho.wn in Fig. 8 built up of
ltO-ohm resistors and SOO-J.i.J.i.j capacitors. The circuit
was energized at low level with a variable-frequency
oscillator,~and the voltages across each stage were
measured with a vacuum-tube voltmeter. The quantity
xN was varied by making the appropriate variation in
frequency. The experimental results, plotted in Fig. 9,
agree with the calculations within experimental error.
The following design data for a hypothetical twomillion volt circuit of this type will illustrate the above
results: N = 40 stages; 2ivo= SO 000 volts, peak input
voltage; wl211' = j=400 cycles/sec; C=40 J.i.J.i.j (stray
capacitance/stage); Q=20 for the series inductors; L
= 10 henries, series inductor; b2=400; b2C=0.016 J.i.j
(size of series capacitors); xN = 0.32; F= 1.0; p= 335
watts.
According to Fig. 3, this circuit, for which N /b= 2,
would have a voltage efficiency F of about 0.5 without
the series inductors.
The series capacitors chosen may appear large, since
a considerably smaller value can be used without lowering F appreciably. However, to decrease the series
capacitors would decrease b2 and this, according to Eqs.
(39) and (30), would increase the power required and
would make the circuit more frequency sensitive. Since
the power required is proportional to the frequency
in Eq. (39), it is apparent that this circuit will ordinarily
be advantageous only at low frequencies.
Thus, it seems possible to design a many stage circuit
with series inductors which has both a high voltage
efficiency F and a low power loss P.

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