High-power gas switches triggered by GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switches with low self-triggering probability and μJ lasers

As avalanche gallium arsenide photoconductive semiconductor switches (GaAs PCSS) operate under high-voltage and high-current environments, the switches suffer from serious self-triggering problems. This paper proposes a novel sidewall triggering method to mitigate the self-triggering effect of avalanche GaAs PCSS. Compared with the traditional planar triggering method, the self-triggering probability of GaAs PCSS triggered by the sidewall method is reduced from 5.2 × 10⁻³ to 7.35 × 10⁻⁵, which is about two orders of magnitude lower. Meanwhile, an experimental study of sidewall GaAs PCSS triggered high power gas switching. The experimental results show that the GaAs PCSS is able to successfully trigger a high-power gas switch with a turn-on delay time jitter of 1.53 ns at 40 kV and 0.3 MPa. The feasibility of the side-wall GaAs PCSS for triggering the gas switch is verified.