High-speed photoconductive switches at high voltage bias in radar systems

The objective of this work is to realize a photoconductive switch able to generate short pulses with very high amplitude, in order to design and realize new front-end radar architectures exploiting time domain. In fact, many modern radar applications, as, for example, Time Modulated Array and High Power Devices require switches as much ideal as possible. Consequently, it is required a very low transition time, a very low light resistance and a very high dark resistance. Moreover, in order to realize a switch with very interesting characteristics and suitable for one of the previous applications, it is required that the switch supports high powers. Moreover, the designed switch can be inserted into a Blumlein Pulse Forming Network in order to meet more stringent requirements on the final output pulse.