Influence of exterior electric parameters on GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch’s turn-on process

The difference of photocurrent waveforms from the semi-insulating GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch(PCSS) when using different exterior electric parameters has been investigated. According to the results the influence of exterior electric parameters has been discussed. The test switch was fabricated of 600 μm thick semi-insulating GaAs and the gap was 12 mm. The PCSS was illuminated by laser pulse with incident optical energy of 5.2 mJ at wavelength of 1 064 nm and the photocurrent waveforms were recorded by current probe. The test results show the influence of trigger light, curcuit inductance and storage capacitor on the photocurrent waveform. The rise time is affected by the inductance of the circuit. The capacitor plays a decisive role in the maintaining of the nonlinear mode