Control of Plasma Dynamics within Double-Gate-Turn-Off Thyristors (D-GTO)

High voltage GTO’s require a subtle control of excess charge to exhibit low forward voltage drop as well as low turn-off loss. In this paper it is investigated whether and to what degree device behaviour could be improved if plasma dynamics is controlled with gate electrodes on cathode and anode side. Computer simulations reveal that such D-GTO’s exhibit excellent static characteristics and that with a continuous control of electron to hole current ratios on both sides a reduction of turn-off energy by a factor of about 50 seems possible.