Photoexcited carrier dynamics in a GaAs photoconductive switch under nJ excitation

摘要

In this article,the bunched transport of photoexcited carriers in a GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch(PCSS)with interdigitated electrodes is investigated under femtosecond laser excitation.Continuous outputs featuring high gain are obtained for single shots and at 1 kHz by varying the optical excitation energy.An ensemble three-valley Monte Carlo simulation is utilized to investigate the transient characteristics and the dynamic process of photoexcited carriers.It demonstrates that the presence of a plasma channel can be attributed to the bunching of high-density electron–hole pairs,which are transported in the form of a highdensity filamentary current.The results provide a picture of the evolution of photoexcited carriers during transient switching.A photoinduced heat effect is analyzed,which reveals the related failure mechanism of GaAs PCSS at various repetition rates.