GaAs PCSSs for DC applications

As the demand for greater flexibility and increased energy density moves highly interactive components closer together in pulsed power systems, the development of technologies for less complex and more robust system designs is critical. A key system component that impacts these goals is the trigger generator (TG). Inexpensive, compact, fiber-optically controlled TGs that deliver trigger pulses with sub-nanosecond jitter have been created with photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSSs) [1]. A further simplification in pulsed power design is to move from pulsed to DC charged components. This paper reports results from DC charged GaAs PCSSs with 0.25–1.0 cm gaps extending previously reported results on smaller devices at 3 kV [2] to a new regime of 100 kV.