H/sup +/ irradiation for reverse recovery softness and reliability of power p-i-n diodes for snubberless applications

We describe a coupled experimental-numerical study of the effect of proton irradiation on the inductive turn-off of fast-recovery p-i-n diodes for snubberless applications. The goal is to avoid the large overvoltages and spurious oscillations that may arise at switch-off and jeopardize the diode's reliability. We evaluated different proton irradiation profiles in order to extract indications on the optimum trade-off among switching speed, recovery softness, overvoltage and spurious oscillation damping.