Optical triggering of SiC thyristors using UV LEDs
- 1 January 2011
- journal article
- Published by Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in Electronics Letters
- Vol. 47 (7), 459-460
- https://doi.org/10.1049/el.2010.7041
Abstract
This reported work describes the demonstration of direct light triggering of 4H-SiC thyristors by UV LEDs. Two different structures with etched and non-etched gate were successfully tested. The current rise time was less than 100 ns and the delay time in the range 2–16 µs depending on experimental conditions. The delay time dependency on the LED current is compared with simulation results. This work shows that the UV LED technology is becoming sufficiently mature to switch on SiC thyristors. Thus, an alternative, less expensive and more compact gate light source than the UV laser is now possible. This is of particular interest for very high voltage and pulse power electronic applications.Keywords
This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evaluation of Si and SiC SGTOs for High-Action Army ApplicationsIEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 2009
- The First Demonstration of the 1 cm x 1 cm SiC Thyristor ChipPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2005
- 12.7kV ultra high voltage SiC commutated gate turn-off thyristor: SICGTPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,2004
- Fabrication and Characterisation of High-Voltage SiC-ThyristorsMaterials Science Forum, 2003
- Optical switch-on of silicon carbide thyristorElectronics Letters, 2002
- Penetration depths in the ultraviolet for 4H, 6H and 3C silicon carbide at seven common laser pumping wavelengthsMaterials Science and Engineering B, 1999
- High current density 800-V 4H-SiC gate turn-off thyristorsIEEE Electron Device Letters, 1999