The Cockcroft-Walton Converter: Capacitive Isolation and Split-Phase Control
Name
rabenold-rabenold-meng-eecs-2026-thesis.pdf
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12.08 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
c7a8338280e8d036f48668e2bcfe29f0
Author(s)
Rabenold, Elizabeth S.
Advisor(s)
Coday, Samantha
Date Issued
February 2026
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Composite converters are an effective solution for applications requiring extreme conversion ratios and high power density. Electrical isolation between the input and output return paths is required to facilitate the series-stacking of converters in these composite architectures. This work presents and experimentally validates a capacitively isolated variant of the switched-capacitor Cockcroft-Walton converter for use in stacked converter topologies. A discussion of capacitor charging and charge redistribution losses motivates the design and evaluation of a two-inductor Cockcroft-Walton converter variant with hard charging. Capacitive isolation is investigated for both converter types and split-phase control is introduced to mitigate hard charging losses in the two-inductor converter. An analytical derivation of split-phase timings is shared and experimental split-phase results are presented for the 4-, 6-, and 8-level two-inductor converters.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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