A Total Internal Reflection Photoconductive Switch

We demonstrate a novel illumination technique for extrinsic photoconductive switches based on the creation of a total internal reflection trap to increase the optical path length. The optimal geometry is a square substrate illuminated from one of the corners along the diagonal, ensuring that the tot...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE electron device letters 2019-05, Vol.40 (5), p.734-737
Main Authors: Bora, Mihail, Voss, Lars F., Grivickas, Paulius V., Hall, David L., Alameda, Jennifer B., Kramer, Noah J., Torres, Andrea M., Conway, Adam M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absorption
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
Illumination
Lighting
Optical fibers
Optical reflection
Optical switches
Optical trapping
photoconductivity
Reflection
Silicon carbide
Substrates
Switches
total internal reflection
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We demonstrate a novel illumination technique for extrinsic photoconductive switches based on the creation of a total internal reflection trap to increase the optical path length. The optimal geometry is a square substrate illuminated from one of the corners along the diagonal, ensuring that the total internal reflection condition is maintained after any reflection off the device lateral sides. The optical absorption uniformity throughout the device bulk was improved by designing the entry window to have a cylindrical shape and by using a square core optical fiber as an illumination source. The concept is experimentally validated on a vanadium-doped silicon carbide device that shows approximately four-fold improvement in responsivity compared to normal illumination.
ISSN:0741-3106
1558-0563
DOI:10.1109/LED.2019.2903926