550-W Ultraviolet Exciplex Source for Pulsed Power Applications

The investigation of a high output power, arc lamp exciplex ultraviolet (UV) source for pulsed power applications is presented. The arc lamp generates up to 550 W from XeF
^*
exciplex radiation at 351 nm, totaling to nearly 0.15-mJ total radiated UV energy over the duration of the UV pulse. With an ellipsoidal reflector, the arc lamp produces 400 W/cm
²
and up to 0.1 mJ of UV light onto a 1-cm
²
area. A complete experimental investigation of the arc lamp for both XeCl
^*
(308 nm) and XeF
^*
(351 nm) exciplex sources operated under varying excitation and pressure conditions is reported. As an application, the arc lamp is successfully utilized as an illumination source for an intrinsically triggered, wide bandgap SiC photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS), where a PCSS ON-state resistance of 500 Ω is achieved.