Opportunities for employing silicon carbide in high power photo-switches

High electric field geometries for high power, photoconductive switches made possible by employing subbandgap energy photons and inter-bandgap dopants / defects are being investigated for compact pulse power systems. The high field, long absorption depth package reduces the required linear mode, optical closure energy and also reduces the conduction current density through the active material and at the contacts. This paper describes the opportunities for employing semi-insulating SiC wafer in the University of Missouri-Columbia, high electric field configuration. The parameters of semi-insulating SiC materials and methods of fabricating such materials into a high power photo-switch are discussed. In addition, transient modeling of the transverse injection of optical closure energy is discussed.