Sentaurus Technology Template:

Light-Triggered Thyristor

Abstract
This Sentaurus TCAD project simulates the time-dependent switching
characteristics of a light-triggered thyristor. In particular, the project investigates if a
given light-beam intensity or light-beam radius is sufficient to trigger the thyristor.
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Copyright © 2007 Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction
In high-power systems, such as power transmission
networks, the system-operating voltages are very large.
Typically, they far exceed the blocking capabilities of a
single power thyristor. It becomes, therefore, necessary to
operate a number of the thyristors in series. In such a
configuration, the large potential differences, needed to
trigger an individual thyristor, may not be readily available.
Using an optical fiber to transmit a control signal from,
typically, a GaAs LED, to all thyristors in the series is an
elegant way to avoid the need for a high-voltage gate drive.
However, GaAs LEDs deliver only a relatively small output
power. For this reason, an amplifying gate region next to the
optical gate is used to switch on the main thyristor. This
project shows how to set up a Sentaurus Workbench (SWB)
simulation project to investigate if a given light-beam
intensity or light-beam radius is sufficient to trigger the
thyristor.
It is assumed that the user is familiar with the Sentaurus tool
suite, in particular, Sentaurus Workbench, Sentaurus
Structure Editor, Sentaurus Device, and Inspect. For an
introduction and tutorials, refer to the Sentaurus training
material. For details about tool uses and specific tool syntax,
refer to the respective manuals.
General simulation setup
This section describes the tool flow of the Sentaurus
Workbench project. For each tool, the associated SWB input
parameters and the extracted parameters are discussed.
Sentaurus Structure Editor
The analytic thyristor structure is defined by Sentaurus
Structure Editor. The SWB parameter Lgate is used by
Sentaurus Structure Editor:
„ Lgate [μm] defines the radius of the optical gate area.
Here, a value of 100 is used.
Sentaurus Device
Sentaurus Device first biases the thyristor to 100 V on the
anode and, then, simulates the temporal evolution of the
device in response to a 5 μs light pulse. The size of the
light-beam radius as well as the light-beam power are
defined with the SWB parameters:
„ Lbeam [μm] defines the radius of the light beam. Here,
it assumes the values 20.0 and 80. Users can add or
remove values as required.
Copyright © 2007 Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved.
„ Power [W/cm2] defines the power of the light beam.
Here, it assumes the values 1, 4, and 5. Users can add or
remove values as required.
Inspect
Inspect plots the temporal evolution of the anode current.
Tool-specific setups
Device generation using Sentaurus
Structure Editor and Mesh
The Sentaurus Structure Editor is used to define a radial
slice of the thyristor. It consists of a rectangular silicon
region, which for the Lgate = 100 μm structure is 520 μm
wide and 90 μm deep. The cathode contact covers the entire
bottom of the device. The radial structure of the thyristor is
as follows: The optical gate area is in the center. It extends
to a length defined by the SWB parameter Lgate. An
amplifying region is placed between the optical gate and the
anode. It consists of two metallic rings that are deposited on
top of the silicon substrate. The first ring has a width of
22.5 μm. After a radial distance of 25 μm, the second
metallic ring is deposited. The second ring has a width of
137 μm. After a radial distance of 28 μm, the anode contact
starts.
The cathode is in contact with a p-doped diffused region.
The peak concentration is 1 x 1019 cm–3 and the junction
depth is 10 μm. The uniformly n-doped center region is
60 μm thick and the doping level is 1 x 1014 cm–3. The top
region features a 20 μm thick area with a constant p-doping
level of 2 x 1015 cm–3. In this region, three implanted n-
profiles (with a concentration peak of 1 x 1019 cm–3) can be
found.
The first constitutes the anode, and the second constitutes
the amplifying gate and is located under the outer metal
ring. The third is in the center of the device and constitutes
the optical gate. The junction depth of the anode profile is
10 μm, and the optical and amplifying gate profiles have a
junction depth of 15 μm.
The input file of Sentaurus Structure Editor is fully
parameterized. The dimensions, profiles, and meshing
strategy can be adjusted by editing the top section of the
input file. For example, the radial extent of the optical gate
area and the thickness of the n-regions and p-regions of the
thyristor are defined with the Scheme variables:
(define Lgate @Lgate@)
...
(define Hp 20.0)
(define Hn 70.0)
3
The doping concentrations in the n-regions and p-regions Here, a peak optical power is taken from the SWB
are defined with the Scheme variables: parameter Power. The optical wavelength is set to 900 nm.
(define Cn 1e14) The absorption depth is computed automatically using the
(define Cp 2e15) optical parameter database (ODB) of Sentaurus Device. The
parameter SemSurf defines at which position the peak
Figure 1 shows the thyristor structure. optical generation is applied (here, at the top of the
thyristor). The lateral extent of the light beam is controlled
Metal Rings Doping [cm-3]
1.0e+19 by specifying a window. Here, the window extends from the
1.2e+16 center to a radial distance given by the SWB parameter
-50
1.4e+13
Lbeam. Note that Sentaurus Workbench preprocessing is
-1.4e+13
Optical Amplifying
-1.2e+16
used to convert the units from micron to centimeter. The
Gate Gate
Anode -1.0e+19 temporal profile of the light pulse is defined with the
0
Height [μm]

options WaveTime and WaveTsigma. Here, the pulse is

at its peak value in the interval from 10 μs to 15 μs. At its
beginning and end, the pulse is phased in and out with a
50
Gaussian profile with a standard deviation of 1 μs.

Cathode
The thyristor is pre-biased by ramping the anode voltage to
100
200 V using a quasistationary ramp. Then, a transient
0 100 200 300 400 500
simulation for 100 μs is performed with:
Radius [μm]
Transient (
Figure 1 Light-triggered thyristor generated by Sentaurus Structure Editor;
concentrations of dopants in various regions are shown Initialtime=0 Finaltime=1e-4
Initialstep=1e-7 Increment=1.5 Decrement=4
The mesh for the thyristor is generated by Mesh. This Minstep=1e-11 Maxstep=1e-4
){ Coupled{ Poisson Electron Hole } }
Sentaurus meshing tool is called from within Sentaurus
}
Structure Editor with:
(sde:build-mesh "mesh" "-F tdr" "n@node@_msh") The option Decrement is set to reduce the step size by a
factor of 4 if a solution failed to converge with the current
The command-line option -F tdr instructs Mesh to use step size, in order to better resolve steep temporal gradients.
the TDR file format for the device structure file. (The TDR Transient simulations often run faster and more robust if the
file format is used throughout the project.) backward Euler scheme is used as the temporal
discretization scheme. This scheme is activated with:
Device simulation using Sentaurus Device Math {...
Transient= BE
}
Sentaurus Device is used to simulate the temporal evolution
of the anode current in response to an optical light pulse.
The time evolution of the optical generation rate in the
The simulation is performed using a cylindrical coordinate device is monitored with:
system. Therefore, the simulation results are equivalent to a CurrentPlot {
3D simulation for a circular thyristor. The use of the OptBeam((10.0 , 1.0))
cylindrical coordinate system is activated with: }

Math { ... This command instructs Sentaurus Device to write the

Cylindrical(0.0)
optical generation rate at the coordinate point x = 10 μm
}
and y = 1 μm together with the terminal voltages and
where the argument 0.0 specifies the x-coordinate of the currents to the output file.
symmetry axis. The light pulse is define with:
Figure 2 on page 5 shows the anode current as well as the
Physics { ... light-induced optical generation as a function of time for
OptBeam(
three different light-pulse conditions. It can be seen that, for
WavePower = @Power@ # W/cm2
WaveLength=0.9e-4
a small light spot (radius 20 μm), a light power of at least
SemAbs(model=ODB) 5 Wcm–2 is needed to switch the thyristor. For a wider spot
Semsurf = 0 (radius 80 μm), even a light power of 1 Wcm–2 is sufficient
SemWind = (0.0 @Lbeam@e-4) to trigger the device.
WaveTime= (1e-5 1.5e-5)
WaveTsigma= 1e-6
)
}

4 Copyright © 2007 Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved.

 0
10 2.5e+21

-1
10

Light Generation Rate [1/s/cm3]

2e+21
-2 20 μm/4 Wcm-2
10
20 μm/5 Wcm-2
80 μm/1 Wcm-2
-3
10
1.5e+21
Current [A]

-4
10

-5 1e+21
10

-6
10
5e+20
-7
10

-8
10 0
2.0x10-05 4.0x10-05 6.0x10-05 8.0x10-05 1.0x10-04
Time [s]
Figure 2 Anode current as function of anode voltage (solid lines) for the
light-triggered thyristor simulated with Sentaurus Device;
corresponding optical electron–hole pair generation rate as
function of time is given by dashed lines; light-beam radius and
intensity are 20 μm/4 Wcm–2 (red), 20 μm/5 Wcm–2 (blue), and
80 μm/1 Wcm–2 (green)

Visualization with Inspect

The last tool in the Sentaurus Workbench tool flow is the

visualization tool Inspect, which plots the anode current as
well as the optical generation rate as a function of time.

Inspect expects usually the name of a terminal, such as

Anode, as well as the name of a data field, such as
TotalCurrent, when associating data to an axis. When
plotting a curve as a function of time, the dummy terminal
name NO_NODE is used:
cv_createDS IA($N) \
"PLT($N) NO_NODE time" "PLT($N) Anode TotalCurrent"
y

The optical generation rate is accessed using the identifier

Pos with the x- and y-coordinates as arguments instead of a
terminal:
cv_createDS LightGen($N) \
"PLT($N) NO_NODE time" \
"PLT($N) Pos(10,1) BeamGeneration" y2

Copyright © 2007 Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved. 5