The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 15, 1998
Filed:
Dec. 05, 1995
Konstantinos Papadopoulos, Chevy Chase, MD (US);
APTI Inc., Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A strong magnetic field is applied to a photoconductive semiconductor switch to make the opening time of the switch independent of the recombination time of the photoionized semiconductor. As a result, the switch is capable of shaping current pulses with the fidelity of an illuminating optical pulse used to activate the switch. The strong magnetic field applied to the photoconductive semiconductor switch has a strength satisfying the relationship .mu.B>1, where .mu. is the mobility of the semiconductor (in m.sup.2 /Volt Sec) and B the magnetic field (in Tesla). Such a switch acts as an insulator (magnetic insulation) to an applied electric field except during the time that the light incident thereon generates electron-hole pairs. During that time, a polarization current, proportional to the externally induced pair production rate, flows and the magnetic insulation is broken. The minimal system response time is controlled by the gyrofrequency of the carriers. The response time is shorter than one picosecond for materials with small carrier effective mass and magnetic fields of one Tesla.