Ultra-Wideband Electrical Pulse Generator Using Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches

We achieved the generation of unipolar and bipolar ultra-wideband electrical pulses by using a photoconductive device. It relies on a doped silicon substrate which is used in the linear mode with less optical energy than usually published. This running mode allows the synchronisation of several sources with a timing jitter less than 5 ps. However it permits to control the low frequency components of the bipolar generator by means of the synchronisation of two photoconductors. So we generated unipolar pulses from 43 ps to 300 ps of duration (full width at half maximum: FWHM) with peak voltage up to 10700 V and bipolar pulses between 200 ps and 450 ps of cycle length with 3000 V of peak voltage.