Side-Illuminated Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch Based on High Purity Semi-Insulating 4H-SiC

High purity semi-insulating (HPSI) 4H-silicon carbide (SiC) was used to fabricate lateral and vertical photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSSs). The lateral PCSSs were illuminated from the frontside (fPCSS) or the backside (bPCSS). The side-illuminated vertical PCSS (vPCSS) was designed to increase the light-matter interaction volume. A 532-nm pulsed laser with adjustable energy was utilized to excite the PCSSs. The turn-on time was found to be highly dependent on the optical illumination energy, and the full-width at half-maximum of the PCSSs output waveforms was related to the peak output voltage. The output electrical pulse from the vPCSS exhibited a shorter turn-on time and a larger pulsewidth than the two types of lateral PCSSs. The vPCSS outperformed the fPCSS and bPCSS in terms of minimum ON-state resistance and output pulse amplitude under the same optical illumination energy. The vPCSS, which utilizes a large effective contact area to collect photogenerated carriers, also had higher photon absorption efficiency by arranging the optical path at a right angle to the carrier transport. The vPCSS exhibited a minimum ON-state resistance of 0.34 Omega at optical illumination energy of 8 mJ.

Automated summary

High purity semi-insulating 4H-silicon carbide was utilized to fabricate lateral and vertical photoconductive semiconductor switches. Among them, the vertical PCSS demonstrated superior performance in terms of minimum ON-state resistance and output pulse amplitude.