High Current Density Diamond Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches With a Buried, Metallic Conductive Channel
Zhuoran Han, J. Lee, Stephen Messing, Thomas Reboli, Andrey E. Mironov, C. Bayram
Abstract
Laterally configured diamond photoconductive semiconductor switches (PCSS) with a buried, metallic p <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">+</sup> current channel are reported. Above bandgap (λ ≤ 226 nm) optical triggering enables responsivity of over 130 mA/W. The use of low-impurity semi-insulating diamond as an active absorption layer enables fast rise and fall times (~2 ns) and on/off ratios greater than 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">11</sup> . The PCSS excited with a laser energy of 20 nJ per pulse passes a high current density (44 A/cm) under a DC bias of 60 V, thanks to the buried metallic p <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">+</sup> current channel. The reported devices promise high current carrying capacity without the need for filamenting while leveraging the excellent optical, electronic, and thermal properties of diamond.