Picosecond Pulse Generation by Edge Illumination of Si and InP PhotoconductiveSwitches

摘要

Ultrafast electrical pulses are beginning to be used for performing broadbandfrequency domain characterization of circuits and for test and failure analysis of digital circuits. With frequency components in the terahertz regime, these pulses have been used for the characterization of transmission lines for high-speed interconnections on integrated circuits, and for measuring microwave S-parameters. Generation of ultrafast electrical pulses has been developed using pulsed lasers on semiconductors. Some of these techniques require special materials or geometries, which makes it difficult to use these methods as an analysis tool as in Ref. 2. However, edge illumination requires no special designs other than a coplanar transmission line. jg p.3.