Pulse Compression Characteristics of an Opposed-Electrode Nonlinear GaAs Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch at 2 μJ Excitation

The investigation of nonlinear transient characteristics of gallium arsenide (GaAs) photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) is of great significance for its applications in pulsed power technology. In this letter, the laser diode (LD) energy of 2 mu J is employed to trigger the opposed-electrode GaAs PCSS. The compressed pulse width and increased amplitude are obtained as the bias electric field increases from 6kV/cm to 34kV/cm. It is numerically modeled the transient electric field distribution along the photogenerated carriers' transport. Results reveal that pulse compression effect (PCE) can be attributed to the negative differential mobility (NDM) and electric-field screening (EFS) effect. The compression of pulse width on time scale provides a possibility to relieve the heat accumulation on time scale, and further to suppress the device failure for the potential high-repetition-rate applications.

Automated summary

The investigation of nonlinear transient characteristics of gallium arsenide (GaAs) photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) is of great significance for its applications in pulsed power technology. In this study, the researchers employed a laser diode (LD) with an energy of 2 mu J to trigger the GaAs PCSS. They observed compressed pulse width and increased amplitude as the bias electric field increased. Numerical modeling revealed that these effects can be attributed to negative differential mobility (NDM) and electric-field screening (EFS). The compression of pulse width provides the potential for relieving heat accumulation and suppressing device failure for high-repetition-rate applications.