Workshop on Solid State Switches for Pulsed Power

A Workshop on Solid State Pulsed Power Switching was conducted by Texas Tech U at Tamarron, Colorado, in January, 1983 for the US Army Research Office. The Workshop addressed the state-of-the-art in solid state switching, particularly semiconductor switches, and new solid state related switching concepts for pulsed power applications. An important objective of the Workshop was to establish research priorities. Group discussions were augmented by invited presentations. The principal topics included opening switches, high power closing switches, extremely fast risetime closing switches and state transition switches; devices of particular interest were thyristors, avalanche switches and the optically triggered intrinsic switch. The invited papers, along with summaries of the Working Group discussions and recommendations, are presented in this report. A general summary, including suggested research topics, is included.