Hard-and soft-switching behavior of bipolar 1.2 kV gallium arsenide (GaAs) diodes in comparison to silicon and silicon carbide devices

In this paper the switching behavior of two different 1200 V bipolar gallium arsenide diodes is evaluated experimentally. In comparison to silicon diodes, the reverse recovery process is almost independent from the chip temperature and the reverse recovery time remains short at high junction temperatures. This makes gallium arsenide an interesting semiconductor material not only for high frequency applications but also for future power electronics.