New experimental results of optically activated BMFET switches with different cell design

Author

Breglio, Giovanni ; Cutolo, Antonello ; Irace, Andrea ; Spirito, Paolo ; Zeni, Luigi

Author_Institution

Dipt. di Ingegneria Elettronica e delle Telecomunicazioni, Univ. di Napoli Federico II, Italy

Volume

14

Issue

5

fYear

1999

fDate

9/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

877

Lastpage

881

Abstract

Optically activated semiconductor devices play a very attractive role in power circuits control applications. In fact, due to the very high galvanic isolation between the control circuit side and the power circuit side, these specific devices can solve the safety problems and eliminate the unintentional switching. In an earlier work, a detailed theoretical and numerical analysis of the BMFET as an optically controlled switch was presented. In this paper, the authors complete the previous analysis by presenting experimental results on the optical switching of various kinds of bipolar mode field effect transistor (BMFET) obtained with a low-power optical source. The BMFETs used are different in design parameters and geometries. The results obtained are in good agreement with the authors´ previous theoretical and numerical previsions

Keywords

optical switches; power bipolar transistors; power field effect transistors; semiconductor device measurement; semiconductor device testing; bipolar mode field effect transistor; design parameters; device geometries; galvanic isolation; low-power optical source; optically activated BMFET switches; power circuits control applications; FETs; Galvanizing; Numerical analysis; Optical control; Optical devices; Optical switches; Power semiconductor switches; Safety devices; Semiconductor devices; Switching circuits;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/63.788484

Filename

788484