Microwave On/Off Ratio Enhancement of GaAs Photoconductive Switches at Nanometer Scale

• Published in: IEEE aerospace and electronic systems magazine Vol. 30; no. 23; pp. 3576 - 3579
• Main Authors: Tripon-Canseliet, C., Faci, S., Pagies, A., Magnin, V., Formont, S., Decoster, D., Chazelas, J.
• Format: Journal Article Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-12-2012; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Electrodes; Electromagnetism; Electronics; Engineering Sciences; Exact sciences and technology; Information, signal and communications theory; Microwave communication; Microwave devices; Microwave photonics; Microwave sampling; nanotechnology; Optical switches; Optoelectronic devices; photoconductive switches; Sampling, quantization; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Signal and communications theory; Substrates; Telecommunications and information theory; Performance evaluation; Microwave sampling; Optimization; Nanometer scale; Dimension reduction; photoconductive switches; Continuous wave; Photoconducting device; Insertion loss; Optoelectronic device; Illumination; Photoconducting switches; Sampling; Nanotechnology; On off effect; Photoconductive switches
• ISSN: 0733-8724; 0885-8985; 1558-2213
• DOI: 10.1109/JLT.2012.2223196

This paper reports on performances enhancement of photoconductive switches in term of On/Off ratio and insertion losses. The optimization parameters on which the research has been focused are gap dimensions reduction to nanometer scale. The device characterization results up to a microwave frequency of 40 GHz and under CW illumination at a wavelength of 800 nm are presented. On/Off ratio reveals a value of 13 dB at 20 GHz under 100 mW optical power.