Experimental analysis of the dynamic performance of Si, GaAs and SiC Diodes

This paper presents original test results using GaAs and SiC based diode structures instead of Si based fast recovery diode structures to be applied in a new voltage fed step-up DC/DC converter. Overall test results show that the GaAs diodes behave similarly to fast recovery silicon diodes assuming equal operating and cooling conditions. As expected, SiC Schottky diode was found to show a clear advantage in terms of reverse-recovery characteristics. The positive temperature coefficient of the on-state voltage drop of GaAs and SiC diodes could provide significant application advantage in high-power applications, where the parallel connection of devices is necessary.