6H SILICON CARBIDE PHOTOCONDUCTIVE SWITCHES FOR HIGH POWER APPLICATIONS

High voltage, high current, low inductance, fast resistive transition, precisely controlled switches are the critical component that can enable fielding the most compact pulse power systems. Presently, the only known switch technology with the potential to fulfill these requirements is photo-conductive switching of bulk semiconductors. This document discusses the additional developments of extrinsic, semi-insulating, Silicon Carbide, photo-conductive switches that are required to bring the photo-SIC switch to technology readiness level 4 or 5. The basic physics rationale for employing extrinsic photo-conductivity has been demonstrated through modeling and first order experiments. The current hurdle is package and base device fabrication followed by increasing the conduction time beyond the material recombination time. The proposed work will investigate methods of extending the structure blocking voltage and the package dependent voltage to a larger fraction of the bulk material dielectric strength (3 MV/cm) and extending the switch conduction time to many times the material recombination time which reduces the optical control energy required for efficient operation