The Symmetrical Cascade Rectifier an Accelerator Power Supply in the Megavolt and Milliampere Range

The basic principle of the cascade rectifier circuit was discovered by Greinacher, a Swiss physicist, shortly after World War I.l,* Though two articles appeared on the so-called Greinacher circuit in 1920 and 1921, Greinacher's discovery remained unnoticed for a long period of time, thereafter. The cascade rectifier became known only when Cockcroft and Walton, using the same principie, succeeded in performing the first nuclear disintegration experiment in 1932 with protons acce erated in a CockcroftWalton generator. 3