Overview of high voltage 4H-SiC photoconductive semiconductor switch efforts at texas tech university

Recent advances and the current state-of-the-art for high speed 4H-SiC photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) developed at Texas Tech University are summarized. A performance comparison of multiple generations of switch designs is also presented. These devices have experimentally demonstrated the capability of blocking DC electric fields up to 705 kV/cm (<;0.1 mA leakage current), rise times of 0.63 ns (20/80), and switching 20 kV at 250 A with a di/dt of 75 kA/us at a burst repetition frequency of 65 MHz. Findings and optimizations pertaining to device geometry, sub-contact doping, contact thickness, triggering wavelength, and electron irradiation are presented. Device modeling and experimental results investigating current issues with device lifetime are presented as well.