The future power conversion system not only must meet the characteristics demanded by the load, but also have to achieve high power density with high efficiency, high ambient temperature, and high reliability. Density and efficiency are two key drivers and metrics for the advancement of power conversion technologies. Generally speaking, a high performance active device is the first force to push power density to meet the requirement of modern systems. Silicon has been a dominant material in power management since the late 1950s. However, due to continuous device optimizations and improvements in the production process, the material properties of silicon have increasingly become the limiting factor. Workarounds like the super junction stretch the limits but usually at substantial cost. The use of gallium nitride devices is gathering momentum, with a number of recent market introductions for a wide range of applications such as point-of-load (POL) converters, off-line switching power supplies, battery chargers and motor drives. GaN devices have a much lower gate charge and lower output capacitance than silicon MOSFETs and, therefore, are capable of operating at a switching frequency 10 times greater. This can significantly impact the power density of power converters, their form factor, and even current design and manufacturing practices. To realize the benefits of GaN devices resulting from significantly higher operating frequencies, a number of issues have to be addressed, such as converter topology, soft-switching technique, high frequency gate driver, high frequency magnetics, packaging, control, and thermal management. This work studies the insight switching characteristics of high-voltage GaN devices including some specific issues related to the cascode GaN. The package impact on the switching performance and device reliability will be illustrated in details. A stack-die package is proposed for cascode GaN devices to minimize the impact of package parasitic inductance on switching transition. Comparison of hard-switching and soft-switching operation is carried based on device model and experiments, which shows the necessity of soft-switching for GaN devices at high frequency. This work also addresses high dv/dt and di/dt related gate drive issues associated with the higher switching speed of GaN devices. Particularly, the conventional driving solution could fail on the high side switch in a half-bridge configuration due to relative large common-mode noise current. Two simple and effective driving methods are proposed to improve noise immunity and maintain high driving speed. Finally, this work illustrates the utilization of GaN in an emerging application, high density AC-DC adapter. Many design considerations are presented in detail. The GaN-based adapter is capable of operating at 1-2 MHz frequency with an improved efficiency up to 94%. Several design examples at different power levels, with a power density in the range of 20~35W/in3, which is a three-fold improvement over the state-of-the-art product, are successfully demonstrated. In conclusion, this work is focus on the characterization, and evaluation of GaN devices. Packaging, high frequency driving and soft-switching technique are addressed to fully explore the potential of GaN devices. High density adapters are demonstrated to show the advance of GaN device and its impact on system design. / Ph. D.

Modern data center power architecture developing trend is analyzed, efficiency improvement method is also discussed. Literature survey of high frequency isolated power conversion system which is also called solid state transformer is given including application, topology, device and magnetic transformer. Then developing trend of this research area is clearly shown following by research target. State of art wide band gap device including silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) devices are characterized and compared, final selection is made based on comparison result. Mostly used high frequency high power DC/DC converter topology dual active bridge (DAB) is introduced and compared with novel CLLC resonant converter in terms of switching loss and conduction loss point of view. CLLC holds ZVS capability over all load range and smaller turn off current value. This is beneficial for high frequency operation and taken as our candidate. Device loss breakdown of CLLC converter is also given in the end. Medium voltage high frequency transformer is the key element in terms of insulation safety, power density and efficiency. Firstly, two mostly used transformer structures are compared. Then transformer insulation requirement is referred for 4160 V application according to IEEE standard. Solid insulation material are also compared and selected. Material thickness and insulation distance are also determined. Insulation capability is preliminary verified in FEA electric field simulation. Thirdly two transformer magnetic loss model are introduced including core loss model and litz wire winding loss model. Transformer turn number is determined based on core loss and winding loss trade-off. Different core loss density and working frequency impact is carefully analyzed. Different materials show their best performance among different frequency range. Transformer prototype is developed following designed parameter. We test the developed 15 kW 500 kHz transformer under 4160 V dry type transformer IEEE Std. C57.12.01 standard, including basic lightning test, applied voltage test, partial discharge test. 500 kHz 15 kW CLLC converter gate drive is our design challenge in terms of symmetry propagation delay, cross talk phenomenon elimination and shoot through protection. Gate drive IC is carefully selected to achieve symmetrical propagation delay and high common mode dv/dt immunity. Zero turn off resistor is achieved with minimized gate loop inductance to prevent cross talk phenomenon. Desaturation protection is also employed to provide shoot through protection. Finally 15 kW 500 kHz CLLC resonant converter is developed based on 4160V 500 kHz transformer and tested up to full power level with 98% peak efficiency. / Master of Science

Gadolinium endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs) have shown the potential to become next generation magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents due to their significantly improved efficiency and safety, as well as multi-day body retention which allows for a longer surgery and observation compared to current contrast agents. In Chapter 1, I have reviewed the development of gadolinium EMF based MRI contrast agents. In Chapter 2, I have described my study of Gd3N@C80 and Gd3N@C84 metallofullerenols as next generation MRI contrast agents. The metallofullerenols are synthesized and characterized utilizing UV-vis, IR, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). In addition, relaxivity data were obtained for the two metallofullerenes, and the results showed that Gd3N@C84 metallofullerenol had enhanced relaxivity compared to Gd3N@C80 metallofullerenol. This result is consistent with the observation of magnetic resonance images of the samples at different concentrations. The enhanced relaxivity was attributed to the special "egg shape" of the Gd3N@C84 cage. In Chapter 3, I have described the relaxivity study of Gd3N@C80 (without functionalization) in oleic acid, which could be used as an MRI contrast agent for more hydrophobic bioenvironments. The results show that Gd3N@C80 has a reasonable relaxation effect (relaxivity ~10 mM-1S-1 at 1.4 T) in oleic acid and could be a viable contrast agent even without functionalization. In Chapter 4, I have discussed the outlook of gadolinium EMF-based MRI contrast agents and suggested several directions for future work. / Master of Science

Silicon carbide and silicon nitride turbine engine components are susceptible to hot corrosion by molten sodium sulfate salts which are formed from impurities in the engine's fuel and air intake. Several oxide materials were identified which may be able to protect these components from corrosion and preserve their structural properties. Ta20, coatings were identified as one of the most promising candidates. Thermochemical calculations showed that the chemical vapor deposition(CVD) of tantalum oxide from O2 and TaCI5 precursors is thermodynamically feasible over a range of pressures, temperatures, and reactant concentrations. The deposition of Ta205, as a single phase is predicted in regions of excess oxygen, where the reaction is predicted to yield nearly 100% efficiency. CVD experiments were carried out to deposit tantalum oxide films onto SiC substrates. Depending on the deposition conditions, a variety of coating morphologies have been produced, and conditions have been identified which produce dense, continuous Ta205 deposits. Preliminary corrosion tests on these coatings showed no apparent degradation of the CVD deposited tantalum oxide coatings. The feasibility of depositing ZrTi04 as a coating material was also investigated based on thermochemical considerations. Since no data were available for this material, thermodynamic values were estimated. Thermochemical calculations indicated the chemical vapor deposition of zirconium titanate from O2, ZrCl4, and TiCl4 occurs over a range of temperatures in a very narrow region of the phase diagram. Deviations from the single phase region predicted the codeposition of either Zr02 or Ti02 with ZrTi04. These results suggested that the chemical vapor deposition of ZrTi04 may be difficult from a process handling perspective. Additionally, the process is predicted to be very inefficient, leaving substantial amounts of unreacted chlorides in the reactor exhaust. / Master of Science

The wide-bandgap (WBG) devices, like gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC) devices have proven to be a driving force of the development of the power conversion technology. Thanks to their distinct advantages over silicon (Si) devices including the faster switching speed and lower switching losses, WBG-based power converter can adopt a higher switching frequency and pursue higher power density and higher efficiency. As a trade-off of the advantages, there also exist the high-frequency-oriented challenges in the adoption of the GaN HEMT under research, including narrow safe gate operating area, increased switching overshoot, increased electromagnetic interference (EMI) in the gate loop and the power stages, the lack of the modules of packages for high current application, high gate oscillation under parallel operation. The dissertation is developed to addressed the all the challenges above to fully explore the potential of the GaN HEMTs. Due to the increased EMI emission in the gate loop, a small isolated capacitor in the gate driver power supply is needed to build a high-impedance barrier in the loop to protect the gate driver from interference. A 2 W dual-output gate driver power supply with ultra-low isolation capacitor for 650 V GaN-based half bridge is presented, featuring a PCB-embedded transformer substrate, achieving 85% efficiency, 1.6 pF isolation capacitor with 72 W/in3 power density. The effectiveness of the EMI reduction using the proposed power supply is demonstrated. The design consideration to build a compact 650 V GaN switching cell is presented then to address the challenges in the PCB layout and the thermal management. With the switching cell, a compact 1 kW 400 Vdc three-phase inverter is built and can operate with 500 kHz switching frequency. With the inverter, the high switching frequency effects on the inverter efficiency, volume, EMI emission and filter design are assessed to demonstrate the tradeoff of the adoption of high switching frequency in the motor drive application. In order to reduce the inverter CM EMI emission above 10 MHz, an active gate driver for 650 V GaN HEMT is proposed to control the dv/dt during turn-on and turn-off independently. With the control strategy, the penalty from the switching loss can be reduced. To build a high current power converter, paralleling devices is a normal approach. The dissertation comes up with the switching cell design using paralleled two and four 650 V GaN HEMTs with minimized and symmetric gate and power loop. The commutation between the paralleled HEMTs is analyzed, based on which the effects from the passive components on the gate oscillation are quantified. With the switching cell using paralleled GaN HEMTs, a 10 kW LLC resonant converter with the integrated litz-wire transformer is designed, achieving 97.9 % efficiency and 131 W/in3 power density. The design consideration to build the novel litz-wire transformer operated at 400 kHz switching frequency is also presented. In all, this work focuses on providing effective solutions or guidelines to adopt the 650 V GaN HEMT in the high frequency, high power density, high efficiency power conversion and demonstrates the advance of the GaN HEMTs in the hard-switched and soft-switched power converters. / Ph. D. / Silicon (Si) -based power semiconductor has developed several decades and achieved numerous outstanding performances, contributing a fast development of the power electronics. While the theatrical limit of the silicon semiconductor is almost reached limiting the progress speed to purse the high-efficiency, high-density high-reliability power conversion, the new material, including gallium-nitride (GaN) and silicon-carbide (SiC), based semiconductor, becomes the driven force to retain the development. Compared with Si-based device, GaN and SiC device own a faster switching speed and a lower on-resistance, enabling the adoption of high switching frequency and the possibility to increase the efficiency, power density and dynamic response. The GaN-based semiconductor is explored to be an even promising game changer than SiC device thanks to a higher theoretical ceiling. However, to adopt GaN-based semiconductors and fully utilize its benefits with high switching frequency, there are numerous high-frequency-oriented challenges, including high frequency oscillation at device termination, increased electromagnetic interference (EMI), the lack of the modules of packages for high current application, high frequency oscillation under parallel operation. The dissertation is developed to address the key high-frequency-oriented challenges to adopt GaN-based semiconductors in the power conversion and come up with the novel design strategy and analysis for high-switching-frequency power conversion using GaN devices. To the reduce the increased EMI emission in the gate loop, a novel PCB-embedded transformer structure is proposed to maintain a low isolation capacitor in the gate driver power supply for the GaN phase leg. With the proposed technique, the dual-output gate driver power supply can achieve high efficiency (85%), ultra-low isolation capacitor (1.6 pF) with high power density (72 W/in³ ). To reduce the high frequency oscillation at the GaN device termination, the strategy to layout GaN devices and its gate driver is proposed with corresponding thermal management. A compact structure for three-phase inverter is then presented, operating with a very high switching frequency (500 kHz). Within the inverter, the high switching frequency effects on the inverter performances are assessed to demonstrate the tradeoff and bottle neck to adopt high switching frequency in the motor drive application. In order to reduce the inverter EMI emission at high frequency ( >10 MHz), an active gate driver for GaN device is proposed for the active dv/dt control strategy. To build a high current power converter, the strategy to parallel GaN devices is proposed in the dissertation with the analysis on the commutation between the paralleled GaN devices. A high-frequency high-current litz-wire transformer structure for LLC resonant converter is presented with modeling and optimization. With the technique, a 10 kW LLC resonant converter achieves high efficiency (97.9 %) and high power density (131 W/in³).

This study investigated an oxidation-reduction reaction involving a mixture of minerals, glass, and aluminum that exhibited thermite-type reaction behavior. Thermite reactions are a class of Self-propagating High-temperature Synthesis (SHS) reactions. Chemical reactions between raw minerals and a reducing agent, which exhibit thermite-type reaction behavior, are termed geothermite reactions by the author. Geothermite reactions have the potential for use in In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) applications on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. A geothermite reaction was shown to occur between two particle size distributions of lunar regolith simulant. Regolith simulant is a naturally occurring mixture of minerals and glass mined from a volcanic ash deposit. The chemical composition of the simulant is similar to actual lunar regolith found on the Moon. The product of the reaction was a ceramic-composite material. The effect of reactant stoichiometry, regolith simulant particle size, and reaction environment on phase formation, microstructure, and compressive strength of the reaction product was investigated. Reaction environments used in this study included a standard atmosphere and a vacuum environment of 0.600 Torr. In addition, the energy required to initiate each reaction using various reaction parameters was measured. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis of reaction products synthesized in a standard atmosphere and in vacuum typically indicated the presence of the chemical species: silicon, corundum (α -Al₂O₃), spinel (MgAl₂O₄), and grossite (CaAl₄O₇). Many additional chemical species were present; their occurrence depended on reaction parameters used during synthesis. Diffraction peaks were observed for phases of aluminum nitride within all reaction products formed in a standard atmosphere. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) showed the presence of whisker networks throughout the microstructure for all reactions conducted in a standard atmosphere. Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) indicated the presence of aluminum and nitrogen within many of the whiskers. It was hypothesized that many of the whisker networks were composed of phases of aluminum nitride. No whisker networks were observed in the vacuum synthesized reaction products. Maximum mean compressive strengths were found to be ~ 18 MPa and occurred in the coarse particle size distribution of simulant using the smallest quantity of aluminum. Reactant mixtures using a coarse particle size distribution of regolith simulant were found to require substantially more energy to initiate the reaction than the simulant with the fine particle size distribution. / Master of Science

Surge-energy robustness is essential for power devices in many applications such as automotive powertrains and electricity grids. While Si and SiC MOSFETs can dissipate surge energy via avalanche, the GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) has no avalanche capability and withstands surge energy by its overvoltage capability. However, a comprehensive study into the surge-energy robustness of the cascode GaN HEMT, a composite device made of a GaN HEMT and a Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET), is still lacking. This work fills this gap by investigating the failure and degradation of 650-V-rated cascode GaN HEMTs in single-event and repetitive unclamped inductive switching (UIS) tests. The cascode was found to withstand surge energy by the overvoltage capability of the GaN HEMT, accompanied by an avalanche in the Si MOSFET. In single-event UIS tests, the cascode failed in the GaN HEMT at a peak overvoltage of 1.4~1.7 kV, which is statistically lower than the device's static breakdown voltage (1.8~2.2 kV). In repetitive UIS tests, the device failure boundary was found to be frequency-dependent. At 100 kHz, the failure boundary (~1.3 kV) was even lower than the single-event UIS boundary. After 1 million cycles of 1.25-kV UIS stresses, devices showed significant but recoverable parametric shifts. Physics-based device simulation and modeling were then performed to understand the circuit test results. The electron trapping in the buffer layer of the GaN HEMT can explain all the above failure and degradation behaviors in the GaN HEMT and the resulted change in its dynamic breakdown voltage. Moreover, the GaN buffer trapping is believed to be assisted by the Si MOSFET avalanche. An analytical model was also developed to extract the charges and losses produced in the Si avalanche in a UIS cycle. These results provide new insights into the surge-energy and overvoltage robustness of cascode GaN HEMTs. / M.S. / Power conversion technologies are now inseparable in industrial and commercial applications with widespread solar panels, laptops, data centers, and electric vehicles. Power devices are the critical components of power conversion systems. Since the introduction of Si power metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor (MOSFET) in the mid-1970s, it has become the go-to device that enables efficient and reliable power conversion. After decades of practice on Si MOSFET, the device performance has reached the theoretical limit of the Si material. The recent introduction of wide-bandgap (WBG) power transistors, represented by silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) devices with superior figures of merits, opens the door for faster and more efficient power systems. To exploit the benefits of WBG devices, researchers need to evaluate the reliability and robustness of these devices comprehensively. The work presented here provides a study on the robustness of one mainstream GaN power transistor – the cascode GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT). This robustness test replicates the surge events in power electronics systems and exams their impact on power devices. Over the years, people have thoroughly investigated the surge-energy robustness of Si MOSFETs and concluded that Si MOSFETs are very robust against these surge events thanks to the avalanche mechanism. However, GaN HEMTs lack p-n junction structures between the two major electrodes, leading to the lack of avalanche ability. Instead, GaN HEMTs rely on the overvoltage capability to sustain the surge energy. For the first time, this work evaluates the surge-energy and overvoltage ruggedness of cascode GaN HEMTs, a major player in the GaN power device market. By analyzing the device failure mechanism and degradation behaviors, this research work provides insight into the weakness of these devices for both device designers and application engineers.

Yes / Less than optimal particle isolation techniques have impeded analysis of orthopaedic wear debris in vivo. The purpose of this research was to develop and test an improved method for particle isolation from tissue. A volume of 0.018 mm3 of clinically relevant CoCrMo, Ti-6Al-4V or Si3N4 particles was injected into rat stifle joints for seven days of in vivo exposure. Following sacrifice, particles were located within tissues using histology. The particles were recovered by enzymatic digestion of periarticular tissue with papain and proteinase K, followed by ultracentrifugation using a sodium polytungstate density gradient. Particles were recovered from all samples, observed using SEM and the particle composition was verified using EDX, which demonstrated that all isolated particles were free from contamination. Particle size, aspect ratio and circularity were measured using image analysis software. There were no significant changes to the measured parameters of CoCrMo or Si3N4 particles before and after the recovery process (KS tests, p > 0.05). Titanium particles were too few before and after isolation to analyse statistically, though size and morphologies were similar. Overall the method demonstrated a significant improvement to current particle isolation methods from tissue in terms of sensitivity and efficacy at removal of protein, and has the potential to be used for the isolation of ultra-low wearing total joint replacement materials from periprosthetic tissues.

Pulsed power systems are concerned with the delivery of significant amounts of power in a greatly condensed time frame. To achieve this, energy is often stored in a capacitor, where it can be rapidly discharged. Certain applications require repeated charging and discharging of the load capacitor in a specifically modulated manner; special power electronics systems must be developed for these situations. Existing systems on the market sacrifice a small form factor for greater pulsed power output. The proposed design outlines the development of a compact pulsed power capacitor charger capable of charging a load capacitor to high voltages at a pulse repetition frequency of 30 kHz. Due to the compact form factor, the charger features a unique design of four full-bridge converters modularly connected in Input-Parallel Output-Series configuration. Experimental verification shows that the system exceeds expectations and can be utilized and adapted to fit many pulsed power applications.

No description available.