Buy a JDS-6600 AWG good to 25 MHz, place the electrodes 2 mm apart. Set the AWG to 20 Vpp. Actual mileage may vary, but it will get you started. Very likely you will want to add an external amplifier to boost the output voltage a bit so you can use a wider cell.
That's a large frequency span, so the impedance is varying quite a lot. As a consequence you will need to build an automatic tuner to adjust the impedance matching. I suggest reading my posts to the "Roller inductor... and other craziness" thread. The OP is trying to build a mass spectrometer.
At about age 13 I was morally corrupted by Clair Stong's volume of Amateur Scientist columns from Scientific American. "For less than the price of an average set of golf clubs, you too can smash atoms in your backyard." The column goes on to describe a linear particle accelerator built by a faculty member at Brooklyn Polytechnic IIRC.
Above 1-2 MHz life starts getting complicated. At 20 MHz you're just at the edge of a real adventure.
Take a look at the amateur radio literature describing power amplifiers and antenna tuners for HF from 160 m to 15 m. It appears to me you've got a doozy of an impedance matching problem. So you're looking at a more complex version of what I described in the mass spec project thread. You'll have to tune the system by sampling the voltage potential across the electrodes. Not hard, just more moving parts. The paper by the Stanford folks referenced in that thread is rather poorly done, but the concept is very similar to what you need.
Have Fun!
Reg
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
