High-Gain Operation of GaAs Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch at 24.3 nJ Excitation

In this letter, we show that the high gain (HG) operation of gallium arsenide photoconductive semiconductor switches can be achieved with an excitation energy as low as 24.3 nano-joules. The bias electric field is 78 kV/cm, and the corresponding current is 32.5 A. The concept of a multiplication rate is proposed to understand the avalanche and multiplication level in the HG operation.