A GaN-Based Insulated-Gate Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch for Ultrashort High-Power Electric Pulses

For monolithic realization of a traditional photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) incorporating a high-voltage pulsed bias, an insulated-gate photoconductive semiconductor switch (IGPCSS) structure is proposed. The insulated-gate cells in this structure can aid the laser-triggered area to dynamically obtain a much higher bias voltage than the dc withstand voltage of a traditional PCSS. The static and the dynamic characteristics of a GaN-based IGPCSS triggered by a subbandgap laser are analyzed, and the results show that its photoelectric-conversion efficiency is twice that of a dc-charged traditional GaN-based PCSS for same triggering conditions.