Mechanism of current oscillations in gallium arsenide photoconductive semiconductor switches

Semi-insulating photoconductive semiconductor switch with an electrode gap of 4 mm, triggered by a laser pulse with energy of 0.5 mJ, and applied bias of 2.5 kV, the periodicity current oscillation with a cycle of 12 ns is obtained. It is indicated that the current oscillation is one mode of transferred electron effect, namely quenched domain mode. This mode of trans-electron oscillator is obtained when the instantaneous bias electric field drops below the sustaining field (the minimum electric field required to support the domain) before the domain reaches the anode, which leads to the domain disappears somewhere in the bulk of the switch and away from the ohmic contacts. We mainly analyse the time-dependent characteristic of the mode, the theoretical analysis results are in excellent agreement with the experiment.