A Tesla coil is an electrical resonant transformer circuit designed by inventor Nikola Tesla in 1891. It is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of different configurations consisting of two, or sometimes three, coupled resonant electric circuits.
Tesla used these circuits to conduct innovative experiments in electrical lighting, phosphorescence, X-ray generation, high frequency alternating current phenomena, electrotherapy, and the transmission of electrical energy without wires. Tesla coil circuits were used commercially in sparkgap radio transmitters for wireless telegraphy until the 1920s, and in medical equipment such as electrotherapy and violet ray devices. Today, their main usage is for entertainment and educational displays, although small coils are still used as leak detectors for high vacuum systems.
Originally Tesla coils used fixed spark gaps or rotary spark gaps to provide intermittent excitation of the resonant circuit; more recently electronic devices are used to provide the switching action required. With solid-state drivers, a Tesla coil can be used to generate audible tones, to produce musical effects. While the AC produced by the Tesla coil is of high frequency, the skin effect will not protect a human from deep tissue burns if in contact with the high voltage circuit.
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