Is this the proper way to create a high voltage (low current) straight DC signal from a 9V battery?

Question

My goal is to create a circuit that will take in a 9V DC battery as input and produce a high steady +1500V DC signal. I don't need high current at all. 1 microamp of current will do. The scheme goes like this: I use an astable multivibrator to generate a square wave.

I replace the speaker with a transformer to step up the voltage (and step down the current). I hook up a rectifier to make the now high voltage DC alternating signal to a steady straight +1500V DC signal. Is this the proper way to go about this problem?

Answer 1

This is certainly a reasonable way to go about the problem.

However, you'll probably have an easier time by splitting the voltage increase into two steps.

First step, get your transformer to give 400v or so rather than 1500v, much easier to wind, insulate, will run at higher frequency, all sorts of good things.

Next step, multiply the output with a Cockcroft Walton or Dixon multiplier, in this case a quadrupler. If your load can accept a balanced voltage, then a pair of doublers, one producing +ve, the other -ve, will be more efficient than a single-ended quadrupler.

Answer 2

In general, you can just look around what other engineers used for similar cases. For instance, there are high voltage supplies for Geiger tubes. Like this or this, or one of these.

In general you can either use a transformer to create it, or the huge spikes when you turn off an inductance. You can add a Voltage multiplier as well. If you use a microcontroller anyway, you can use its PWM pin to generate your square wave, and to provide some feedback (stop your PWM when your target voltage is reached).