Study of the Lifetime of High-Power GaAs PCSSs Under Different Energy Storage Modes

This paper presents an experimental study on the lifetime of high-power gallium arsenide photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSSs) under different energy storage modes. Under the capacitive energy storage mode, the lifetime of a PCSS was increased by a factor of 10 through a reduction in the capacitor size, which reduces the hold-time of the carrier avalanche multiplication. Under the transmission line energy storage mode, the lifetime of a PCSS was increased by more than twofold by reducing the bias electric field, which reduces the degree of the carrier avalanche multiplication. Additionally, the influence of various factors on device lifetime and the failure mechanisms are discussed. The experimental results and analysis indicate that electrode erosion and stress damage are the two leading factors that induce the failure of high-power PCSSs.

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