YESvGaN – TRANSFORM- POWERELEC PhD SUMMER SCHOOL

A greener future requires minimizing the waste of energy. Electric power needs to be converted (multiple times) during its way from primary energy supply to the electronic devices used in our daily lives e.g. from the 220V AC mains to a 12V DC end-user appliance. Key to reducing the energy consumption is thus to maximize the efficiency in power conversion. This efficiency can be drastically improved by replacing power transistors that are currently based on silicon by wide band gap (WBG) semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). Despite an accelerating adoption of GaN and SiC during the last years for consumer power supplies and automotive inverters, respectively, silicon-based technology is still largely dominating. To unlock the full potential of WBG based devices, we need to study and understand all the different aspects of the power devices, from growing the raw material to packaging and a demonstration of its potential in a final device.