Study on the photoconductive semiconductor switch of different materials

Abstract

Four types of lateral photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) made of different materials are compared. The PCSS made of GaAs, InP and Si are triggered by laser pulse to find out the effect on the voltage transmission efficiency. The peak voltage transmission efficiency of GaAs PCSS is 93% at the biased voltage 1500V with the laser energy 1mJ. On the same condition, the InP switch is only 63.63%. The Si switch can only acquire the efficiency 0.02%. The difference of different materials employed for PCSS is analysed. The SiC PCSS is compared with the GaAs PCSS in the relationship of the optical energy and the conduction resistance to analysed the voltage transmission efficiency in theoretics. The university of Missouri-Columbia has done some research on the SiC PCSS, some of their experiment results are reported.