A low leakage 10 000-V silicon photoconductive switch

Abstract

Under high bias voltage, the leakage current through a silicon photoconductive switch is mainly caused by carrier injection at the metallic contacts. A low leakage, high voltage silicon photoconductive switch is fabricated by the introduction of carrier trap centers between the silicon substrate and metallic contacts. We report 2.5-mm gap photoconductive switches with leakage currents of less than 50 mA at a pulse bias of 10 kV for 600 ns, and an ‘‘on’’ resistance of less than 1.3 Ω, when illustrated by a 1-ns, 1000-μJ pulse of 1.05-μm radiation.