Current switches based on low-voltage InP heterothyristors with a maximum blocking voltage of 20V were developed and studied. In current pulse generation mode, the efficient operation of InP heterothyristors with a low-resistance load in the form of a capacitor was demonstrated. It has been shown that the minimum turn-on delay time is about 6 ns at a control current amplitude of 60 mA. The possibility of generating current pulses with a duration of 53–154 ns and amplitudes of 38–130 A was demonstrated when the capacitor values were changed in the range of 56–1000nF.

The current–voltage characteristics of n ^+-GaAs/ n ^0-GaAs/ N ^0-AlGaAs/ N ^+-AlGaAs/ n ^+-GaAs isotype heterostructures and n ^+-GaAs/ n ^0-GaAs/ n ^+-GaAs homostructures are studied. It is shown that, for a heterostructure under reverse bias providing the injection of electrons from n ^0-GaAs into N ^0-AlGaAs, the maximum operating voltage reaches a value of 48 V at a thickness of the N ^0-AlGaAs layer of 1 . 0 μm, and the current–voltage characteristic has no region of negative differential resistance. The operation of a homostructure is accompanied by a transition to the negative-differential-resistance region at a voltage of 10 V. Theoretical analysis in terms of the energy-balance model demonstrated that the reverse-biased isotype heterostructure has no negative-differential-resistance region because, in this case, the field domain does not collapse in contrast to what occurs in homostructures.

The switching on process spatial dynamics of a laser-thyristor based on an AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs heterostructure with a thin p-base has been studied. The heterostructure had a modified base with a middle-doped layer at the n-emitter, which makes it possible to increase the operating voltages in order to generate nanosecond current pulses. In laser thyristor pulsed sources based on the proposed heterostructure, a high degree of current flow region localization arising during turn on process of the device was demonstrated. Using the current localization regions luminescence, the propagation dynamics of the switched-on state was estimated. The anode contact sizes required for the nanosecond range pulsed current switches or laser emitters development are obtained.