Very high voltage SOS photocell arrays

High-quality epitaxial silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) has been used to fabricated high-voltage series circuits of mesa-isolated photocells. Potentials of several thousand volts at currents of several microamperes are obtained from a square centimeter area. By conjoining such circuits with laser diodes, DC-DC power conversion for applications such as photomultiplier tubes and particle accelerators can be realized in a compact package without the use of oscillator circuits and transformers. An example of how an array may be implemented in a high-voltage power supply is schematically illustrated