Mentor
Chirag Gupta - Electrical and Computer Engineering
Advisor
Umesh Mishra - Electrical and Computer Engineering
Characterization of Gallium Nitride Power Diodes for Efficient Power Conversion
Interns
Fiona Chrystal - Physics
Jennifer Martinez - Computer Engineering
Asrahi Rodriguez - Mechanical Engineering
Navjot Singh - Electrical Engineering
Project Description
The pervasive use of electricity-powered devices have increased the electricity consumption at a rapid rate. This places a strain on the non-renewable sources of electric power. Even though renewable resources are now being utilised to generate power but still a large percentage of electricity requirement is dependent on the non-renewable sources. Therefore, conserving electricity is of paramount importance. The process of power transmission from the grid to its use in consumer electronics involves multiple power conversion processes. These power conversion processes incurs energy loss. At the heart of every power conversion step is a transistor and a diode. Mishra group is working towards developing electronics (transistors and power diodes) which allows efficient power conversion. The material system used for this development is Gallium Nitride (GaN). GaN is one of the best suited materials for next generation power devices because of its superior characteristics such as high breakdown field, wide band gap and high saturation drift velocity.
This work is targeted towards the development of high power diodes. For achieving high efficiency, diode needs to have a fast turn-on (low on-resistance) and holds high voltage in off state (high breakdown voltage) and switch quickly between on and off states. However, on-resistance and breakdown voltage are inversely related and are dependent upon the doping of GaN.
The effect of doping on breakdown voltage and on-resistance will be studied. The interns will work on the electrical characterization of these diodes. Device parameters such as turn-on voltage, rectification ratio, on-resistance, ideality factor, breakdown voltage, leakage current will be extracted from current-voltage (I-V) characteristics. Comparison of the experimental data/results with ideal models would also be performed.
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