PFI-TT: High-Power Electronic Chip Devices Using Novel Materials and Innovative Strategies

这个创新伙伴关系-技术转化（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力与基于相对较新的材料系统的电子芯片设备的开发有关。这些器件可以提供更高的效率、工作电压、开关频率和在更高温度下的工作。这些装置对于灵活高效的工业电气化是必不可少的。开发的设备的目标应用包括汽车、火车、船舶、飞机、电网、重工业和恶劣环境下的电力转换等运输行业。该项目将影响与电力转换、存储和传输相关的每一个行业部门，这些部门与人类生活的每一个活动有关。该项目采用的新材料比现有材料有许多优点，但在制造这些设备时存在技术挑战。该项目将采用创新的策略来挖掘优点并减少缺点，从而使设备尺寸减小，运行速度更快，功耗降低。这个项目的努力将着眼于最终产品的商业化，从而提高能源效率。这个项目的另一个方面是培养未来的领导者，以确保美国在世界上的技术主导地位。该项目将以新开发的高功率电子器件半导体材料生产方法为基础，促进高功率电子器件的商用化。虽然本提案中研究的材料系统是高功率/高温度应用的理想材料，但其导热性非常差，并且难以生产出生产设备所需的尺寸。因此，如果不注意这些问题，将导致器件的灾难性加热和器件性能差。为了解决这些问题，建议在导热基上生产这些材料和相关器件。因此，在设备运行过程中产生的热量将通过导热底座被移除，该导热底座可以扫描上述许多行业领域的开放式应用。第二个问题是通过一种正在申请专利的方法来解决的，这种方法允许以一种内聚的方式生产高功率器件，这将导致低功耗和高效率。新材料生产工艺的使用和导电基础的增长将导致具有强大商业化潜力的设备。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is related to the development of an electronic chip device based on a relatively new material system. These devices can offer much higher efficiencies, operating voltages, switching frequencies, and operation at higher temperatures. These devices are essential for the flexible and efficient electrification of industry. The target applications for the developed devices include the transportation industry such as motor vehicles, trains, ships, planes, electrical power grids, heavy industry, and power conversion in harsh environments. The project will impact every industry segment related to power conversion, storage, and transmission – which are linked to every activity of human life. The new material employed for this project has many advantages over the existing materials but there are technical challenges in fabricating these devices. The project will use innovative strategies to exploit the advantages and diminish the disadvantages that will result in devices with size reduction, faster operation, and reduced power consumption. The efforts in this project will be geared towards the commercialization of the final product that will result in energy efficiency. The other aspect of this project is the training of future leaders to ensure the technical dominance of the USA in the world.The proposed project will help commercialize high-power electronic devices based on a newly developed growth method for producing semiconductor materials for high-power devices. Although the material system investigated in this proposal is ideal for high power/temperature applications but has very poor thermal conductivity and is harder to produce cohesively for the dimensions required to produce the devices. Thus, if these problems are not taken care of, they will result in catastrophic heating of the devices and poor device performance. To solve these problems, it is proposed to produce these materials and associated devices on a thermally conducting base. Thus, the heat generated during the device operation will be removed through the thermally conducting base that scan open applications in many industry segments as indicated above. The second problem is solved by a patent-pending approach that allows the production of high-power devices in a cohesive manner, which will result in low power loss and high efficiency. The use of new material production processes and growth on conducting base will result in devices that will have strong commercialization potential.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.