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Ultrafast Reverse Recovery Time Measurement for Wide-Bandgap Diodes

Journal Article · · IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [2]
  1. Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX (United States); Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  2. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  3. Avogy, Inc., San Jose, CA (United States); U.S. Dept. of Energy, Washington, D.C. (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

A system is presented that is capable of measuring sub-nanosecond reverse recovery times of diodes in wide-bandgap materials over a wide range of forward biases (0 – 1 A) and reverse voltages (0 – 10 kV). The system utilizes the step recovery technique and comprises a cable pulser based on a silicon (Si) Photoconductive Semiconductor Switch (PCSS) triggered with an Ultra Short Pulse Laser (USPL), a pulse charging circuit, a diode biasing circuit, and resistive and capacitive voltage monitors. The PCSS based cable pulser transmits a 130 ps rise time pulse down a transmission line to a capacitively coupled diode, which acts as the terminating element of the transmission line. The temporal nature of the pulse reflected by the diode provides the reverse recovery characteristics of the diode, measured with a high bandwidth capacitive probe integrated into the cable pulser. Furthermore, this system was used to measure the reverse recovery times (including the creation and charging of the depletion region) for two Avogy gallium nitride (GaN) diodes; the initial reverse recovery time was found to be 4 ns and varied minimally over reverse biases of 50 – 100 V and forward current of 1 – 100 mA.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1345539
Report Number(s):
SAND--2017-0840J; 650741
Journal Information:
IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, Journal Name: IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 32; ISSN 0885-8993
Publisher:
IEEECopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Cited By (1)

Investigation of dry-etch-induced defects in >600 V regrown, vertical, GaN, p-n diodes using deep-level optical spectroscopy journal October 2019

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Related Subjects

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
photoconductive semiconductor switches
power diodes
power electronics
reverse recovery
ultra-short pulse lasers
wide-bandgap devices