High-Speed LED Driver for ns-Pulse Switching of High-Current LEDs

Abstract

This letter analyzes the intrinsic optical switching response of state-of-the-art high power, multiquantum wells, thinfilm, and surface-textured infrared light emitting diodes (LEDs). For the switching time response of such devices, the theoretical basics are presented and their predictions are experimentally verified. In the second part of this letter, a novel, fast switching LED driving circuit is presented which enables nanosecond-pulse operation. The circuit reduces significantly the optical rise and fall time of LEDs from 10/15 ns, respectively, down to 2.6 ns at 2-A pulse current without compromising the peak output power.

NanoLEDs for energy-efficient and gigahertz-speed spike-based sub-λ neuromorphic nanophotonic computing

“…This is lower than the amplitude of 100 mV in biological counterparts and much smaller than the typical switching voltages (0.2-2 V) of memristive devices [42]. Notably, we conclude the optical energy per spike is roughly constant and therefore, at some extent, almost independent of the incoming modulating frequency signal, a situation markedly different from standard current modulation methods of light sources [31,37,43]. This provides a new modulation scheme in nanoLEDs featuring all the key requirements of spike-based sub-λ neuromorphic optical computing.…”

“…We demonstrated inhibitory-and excitatory-like optical spikes at multi-gigahertz speeds can be achieved upon receiving exceptionally low (sub-10 mV) synaptic-like electrical activation signals, lower than the amplitude of 100 mV in biological counterparts and much lower than the typical switching voltages of memristive devices, while providing remarkable low energy consumption, in the range of 10-100 fJ per emitted spike. Importantly, the energy per spike is roughly constant and almost independent of the incoming modulating frequency signal, which is noticeably different from conventional current modulation schemes of LED sources [37,43]. Although our focus here has been in the analysis of the efficient activation of the optical spiking response via high-speed nonlinear electrical modulation of the nanoLED, this optical nanosource has the potential to enable optical activation of the all-or-nothing spiking response by taking advantage of the highly-sensitive photoresponse of the quantum resonant tunneling nanostructures [48,57,60].…”

Waveguide-coupled nanopillar metal-cavity light-emitting diodes on silicon

“…At last, it is possible to explore other methods that do not require Purcell enhancement to further improve the speed of the nano-LEDs, for example, taking advantage of Auger recombination at high carrier densities or using reverse-biasing of the nano-LED during the turn-off cycle to shorten the minority carrier storage time 42 . For example, we achieved a fast switch-off of around 123 ps using reverse-biasing of our nano-LEDs at room temperature ( Supplementary Fig.…”

Zeta Converter with Resistor-capacitor-diode Snubber and H-type Snubber to Reduce Switching and Reverse-recovery Losses

“…(1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6) To overcome the above disadvantages, zeta converters with soft-switching techniques to reduce power losses and EMI noise have been proposed. (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) The soft-switching techniques can be divided into four techniques: zero-voltage switching (ZVS), zero-current switching (ZCS), zero-voltage transition (ZVT), and zero-current transition (ZCT). Among the four techniques, the ZVT technique has the simplest structure and easiest implementation for applications of low-or medium-power converters.…”