Laser triggering of solid-state switches

A theoretical and experimental investigation has been made into the laser activated Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) turn-on process. Thanks to the measurement of illumination profile of the thyristor gate and a one-dimensional commutation model, a prediction can be made of the temperature hot spots of the initially conducting area region adjacent to the gate. The improvement of switching characteristics with respect to the datasheet parameters for an electrically gated configuration will be demonstrated; 8-fold turn-on delay reduction and the rate of rise of the on-state current (di/dt) increased over 45 times at low pulse repetition rate, without destroying the device.