A high peak power impulse pulser that is controlled with high gain, optically triggered GaAs Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches (PCSS) has been constructed and tested. The system has a short 50 approximately ega line that is charged to 100 kV and discharged through the switch when the switch is triggered with as little as 90 nJ of laser energy. We have demonstrated that the GaAs switches can be used to produce either a monocycle or a monopulse with a period or total duration of about 3 ns. For the monopulse, the voltage switched was above 100 kV, producing a peak power of about 48 MW to the 30 approximately ega load at a burst repetition rate of 1 kHz. The laser that is used is a small laser diode array whose output is delivered through a fiber to the switch. The current in the system has rise times of 430 ps and a pulse width of 1.4 ns when two laser diode arrays are used to trigger the switch. The small trigger energy and switch jitter are due to a high gain switching mechanism in GaAs.
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