A voltage multiplier is an electrical circuit that converts DC electrical power from a low voltage to a higher voltage. Although the DC to DC converter performs a similar function, the term voltage multiplier is reserved for circuits that use a network of capacitors and diodes to generate high voltages. Voltage multipliers range in size from microscopic devices called charge pumps, which are built in to integrated circuits to generate bias voltages of a few volts or tens of volts, to towers, many metres tall, that generate millions of volts for purposes such as high-energy physics experiments and lightning safety testing.
A common type of voltage multiplier used in high-energy physics is the Cockcroft-Walton generator (which was designed by John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton for a particle accelerator, for use in research that won them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951). Another type used in high-energy physics is the Marx generator, which uses spark gaps instead of diodes as the switching elements.
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