Computationally Assessing Diamond as an Ultrafast Pulse Shaper for High Power Ultrawide Band Radar

Abstract

Diamond devices hold promise to reshape ultrafast and high power electronics. One such device is the diode avalanche shaper (DAS), which functions as an ultrafast closing switch where sub-nano-second closing is caused by the formation of the streamer traversing the diode much faster than 10 7 cm/s. One of the most prominent applications of DAS is in ultrawide band (UWB) radio/radar. Here we simulate a diamond-based DAS and compare the results to a silicon-based DAS. All DAS were simulated in 3D in mixed mode as ideal devices using the drift-diffusion model. The simulations show that diamond DAS promises to outperform Si DAS when sharpening kilovolt nanosecond input pulse.