Technologies for SiC electronics and sensors in extreme environments

碳化硅(SIC)电子和传感器技术将在21世纪的能源和交通技术中发挥重要作用。减少温室气体排放的环境压力，加上化石燃料资源的减少，将推动电力作为首选的使用点能源输送机制的使用继续增加。电能的高效和灵活转换越来越多地通过使用电力电子来实现，电力电子是一个将在未来几十年迅速扩大的技术和商业领域。与其他宽禁带半导体一样，碳化硅在电力电子的效率和应用范围方面具有显著提高的潜力。因此，它被视为许多创新能源和交通开发的推动者，例如用于更电动飞机、混合动力/全电动公路车辆和铁路牵引的高功率电子产品，或用于需要高速高压开关的发电和配电网络。该平台赠款的主要目的是促进对将SIC电子和传感器技术提供给极端环境应用的技术的长期、创新和通用研究。这一目标将通过三个具体目标来实现。首先，平台补助金将有助于保留核心的专家研究人员，并为他们在安全和稳定的就业环境中的职业发展提供便利。其次，它将补充目前和计划的研究活动，使团队能够解决与碳化硅电子和传感器相关的投机性但具有战略重要性的问题。第三，它将通过为一系列国际交流提供资金，满足该小组更广泛的发展需求。我们预计，国际上将越来越多地努力实现SIC设备在现实生活中的应用和系统的好处，许多拟议的研究都朝着这个方向发展。我们计划进行重大的新研究，将先进的碳化硅器件与新材料制造方法相结合，应用于重要的系统应用，特别是能源转换(在所有形式的可再生能源中至关重要)，以及用于汽车实时污染监测等新兴领域的新型传感器。这些发展将为社会带来实实在在的好处，同时为那些能够采用这些真正具有颠覆性的技术的公司打开重要的新商业市场。与这种系统级观点一起，材料技术(如新型介质技术的应用)和新型器件(使用这种介质制造的碳化硅晶体管)方面的关键发展将为这些技术的应用所带来的系统级性能的显著改善奠定基础。

Silicon Carbide (SiC) electronics and sensor technologies will play an important role in the energy and transport technologies of the 21st Century. Environmental pressures to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions coupled with diminishing fossil fuel resources will drive a continuing increase in the use of electricity as the preferred point-of-use energy delivery mechanism. The efficient and flexible conversion of electrical energy is increasingly accomplished through the use of power electronics, a technology and business area that is set to expand rapidly over the next decades. SiC, in common with other wide band-gap semiconductors, offers the potential for dramatic improvements in the efficiency and range of applications for power electronics. It is thus seen as an enabler for many innovative energy and transport developments, such as power-dense electronics for the more electric aircraft, hybrid/all-electric road vehicles and rail traction or for application to the electricity generation and distribution network, where high-speed high-voltage switches are needed.The principal aim of this Platform Grant is to facilitate long-term, innovative, generic research into technologies that will deliver SiC electronics and sensor technology to extreme environment applications. This aim will be achieved through three specific objectives. First and foremost the Platform Grant will facilitate the retention of a core of expert research staff and provide for their career development within a secure and stable employment environment. Secondly, it will complement current and planned research activities by allowing the Team to address speculative but strategically important issues associated with SiC electronics and sensors. Thirdly, it will address the wider development needs of the Team by providing funds for a range of international exchanges. We foresee an increasing international effort towards realising the benefits of SiC devices in real-life applications and systems and much of the proposed research is orientated in that direction. We plan major new investigations into applying advanced SiC devices coupled with new material fabrication methods to significant systems applications / in particular energy conversion (of crucial importance in all forms of renewable power) and new types of sensors for emerging areas such as real-time pollution monitoring in automobiles. Such developments will provide real benefit to society whilst opening up significant new commercial markets to those companies that can adopt these genuinely disruptive technologies. Alongside this system level perspective will be crucial developments in materials technologies (such as the application of new types of dielectric technology) and novel devices (SiC transistors fabricated using such dielectrics) that will underpin the dramatic improvements in system level performance that will arise from the application of such technologies.