In this paper we report on the experimentation conducted on vertical optically activated switches fabricated from GaAs grown by Liquid Encapsulated Czochralski (LEC) and Vertical Gradient Freeze (VGF) techniques. Heavily doped contact regions have been grown on the bulk GaAs to form n⁺-SI GaAs-n⁺ and p⁺-SI GaAs-n⁺ structures. Dark dc I-V characterization has been used to assess the voltage withstand characteristics of the devices demonstrating 3.5 kV hold-off for reverse biased LEC and VGF p⁺-SI GaAs-n⁺ devices. Optical activation has achieved a 1 ns switch closure time with VGF p⁺-SI GaAs-n⁺ devices reverse biased at 7 kV and 2 ns switch closure times for VGF n⁺-SI GaAs-n⁺ devices biased at 4.5 kV. The voltage drop across the optically activated switches was characterized in terms of two components; a constant and a resistive voltage drop.

Date Published: 4 January 1995
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 2343, Optically Activated Switching IV, (4 January 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.198654

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2343:
Optically Activated Switching IV
William R. Donaldson, Editor(s)