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A Tesla coil is a category of disruptive discharge transformer coils, named after their inventor, Nikola Tesla. Tesla coils are composed of coupled resonant electric circuits. Tesla coils in general are very popular devices among high-voltage enthusiasts. Although modern Tesla Coils are designed to generate long sparks, Tesla's original system were designed for wireless communication , so he used large radii of curvature to prevent corona and streamer losses.

Solid State Tesla Coils:
Solid State Tesla Coils are almost the same as a traditional Tesla Coils, except that instead of a spark gap oscillator, they use transistors or MOSFETS. This allows them to run on much less power and be built much smaller then a regular Tesla Coil. These types of coils are used in many places in which high voltage is required, such as TVs, gas discharge LASERs, etc. Solid State Tesla Coils are similar in the respect that they use the same basic principle of operation; a high frequency resonant transformer. Because the primary and secondary are so perfectly tuned, there is a huge increase in voltage. Solid State Tesla Coils are not air core transformers. Instead, they are usually wound on a ferrite form, much like a regular transformer (execpt that regular transformers are usually wound on an iron core). This is how TV flyback transformers are made.