Silicon Carbide Optically Gate Solid State Power Switch

This Phase-II effort, will design, fabricate and characterize high-gain, SiC-based high-voltage, Optically-Gated High-power Solid-state Switch for electromagnetic-interference immune and optically-isolated compact, sub-microsecond pulsed-power applications. Such features are uniquely applicable towards Marx Bank Modulator power supplies used in High Energy Physics Applications. Ever increasing demand of pulsed-power systems for higher-voltage and current-handling capabilities has been met, at a circuit and component level, by a stacking approach i.e. series-parallel integration of lower rated components. This concept can be extended down to device level also where decoupling of triggering and main power-handling structure addresses similar scalability issues. The advantage of employing a hybrid structure can be leveraged, as the optical- triggering structure does not need to be scaled up in voltage. Moreover, the active area of the optical window does not need scaling in proportion to the size of the main power device. This can potentially keep the optical-triggering power requirement low even for a switch with higher voltage and higher current ratings. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: To avail the advantages of the scalability offered by structural decoupling, this research and development effort focuses on a hybrid device configuration with an optical front-end stage coupled to a dual-gate thyristor structure, which acts as the main power device. The primary goal of this project is to design and fabricate 4H-SiC based dual-gate thyristor and optical-triggering structure with the rating of the thyristor equal to or greater than 6 kV and peak current equal to or greater than 2 kA. A further goal is to individually characterize the thyristor and optical-triggering prototypes for steady state and switching performance and to integrate the two devices onto a single packaging platform. The final goal is to test the integrated packaged device for steady-state and switching performance in a switching circuit.