A photo-conductive microwave switch

While this work is completely concerned with a semiconductor switch, the origin of the requirement was based on hybrid superconductive/semiconductive electronics. High temperature superconductivity (HTS) allows planar microwave circuits to be built with performance levels not possible with conventional thin film materials. By combining HTS elements with semiconductor elements it is now possible to consider building highly integrated microwave systems for example, a hybrid superconductive/semiconductive receiver has been demonstrated[1]. There are significant performance advantages to be realized by cooling the semiconductive components, particularly lower noise and higher gain. However, power dissipation becomes a very critical concern since all power dissipated in the device must be extracted by a cooling system that is an expensive part of any HTS system. Power dissipation is a key factor in choosing a switch device for a hybrid system.