Source–drain switching characteristics when coupled with a gate-controlled DBD in a microplasma switch

Abstract

Microplasma switches have attracted much attention in harsh environment applications such as satellites, space exploration, nuclear reactors and oil drilling because of their inherent characteristics. Microplasma switch is generally constructed by source, drain, and gate electrodes, current conduction is generated between drain and source (DS), and modulated by gate. In this work, to improve the gate lifespan and device stability, a microplasma switch with gate dielectric barrier structure was fabricated due to the even and stable discharge of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) and a parameterized nanosecond pulse voltage signal was applied to the gate. Under the effect of the DS voltage, pulsed DS current is triggered by gate pulse since a large number of charged particles are generated with gate DBD, which shows the DS switching behavior triggered by gate pulse. The microplasma switch operates stably
(with an average delay jitter of less than 50 ps) at the repetition frequencies (up to 80 kHz), moreover, the influence of experimental conditions on switching performance is systematically investigated. Conduction current and delay, which related to discharge intensity and speed, are influenced by electric field strength of channel (decided by pulse amplitude and DS voltage) and its variation rate (decided by rising and falling edge time of pulse). In addition, it is influenced by varying breakdown voltage of DS (decided by pd, i.e., gas pressure times DS spacing), which can result in working coefficient variation. It is also influenced by varying wall voltage (decided by pulse width and frequency), which can result in the decreases of total voltage of channel.