Analysis of metalized 4H-SiC for high-temperature electric weapon applications

While silicon (Si) based electronic materials and devices continue to play a dominant role in much of the electrical power industry, novel high-power and high-temperature materials are of great interest to the electric combat systems community. The technical interest in silicon carbide (SiC) is mainly due to its ability to operate at greatly elevated power and temperature (>300°C) levels compared to its Si-based counterpart. High-power and temperature pulsed-power electronics can be exploited by future military combat systems, which could potentially provide significantly improved combat vehicle performance including increased lethality through extending the maximum obtainable gun performance using advanced electric weapon concepts such as electrothermal-chemical (ETC) and electromagnetic (EM) gun technologies