D. Ing. / Power electronics refers to electronic processing of electrical power. In this process the electrical power is controlled by switching of power semiconductor devices as well as electromagnetically stored in electrical and magnetic fields while the energy flow is directed through selective conduction paths. The losses/power-efficiency of all these actions is of paramount importance in the processing. The lack for standardisation and the absence of a modular approach is a barrier to the development of more compact systems. Recently more research resources have been invested in development of integrated power electronic modules as an attempt to solve this problem. By integrating power electronic components, an increase in the power density is achieved, which unfortunately also leads to higher internal heat-generation and higher operating temperatures. This has an unfavourable effect on electronic behaviour and the reliability of the structures. In order to maintain the advances made in volume reduction of integrated power electronics, efficient and cost effective methods for removing heat is of essence. In this investigation the performance of rectangular cross-section embedded solid-state heatextraction inserts to increase thermal heat spreading and the reduction of steady-state peak temperatures was evaluated theoretically and experimentally. Theoretically, the cross sectional aspect ratio of such inserts was thermally optimised for a wide range of dimensional, thermal, and material property conditions. Possible materials investigated for use as heat extractors in power electronics include aluminium nitride, beryllium oxide, and synthetic diamond. The presence of interfacial thermal resistance was theoretically found to have a significant detrimental influence on the thermal performance of an integrated heat-extraction system and should be minimised as far as possible. For conditions commonly found in integrated power passives, continuous embedded heatextraction layers are proposed. Theoretically it is shown that such inserts can aid in the increase of power density by reducing the temperature increase per unit volume of heat-generation. Experimental test results corresponded closely with the theoretically expected allowed increase in heat-generation that could be accommodated due to the heat-extraction action of the inserts. As an experimental system, insertion of aluminium nitride into ferrite in an integrated electromagnetic power passive module was investigated. An increase of 187% in the effective power density could be achieved due to the presence of aluminium nitride heat-extraction layers embedded into ferrite. Preliminary magnetic flux density optimisation, in terms of the volume fraction occupied by a parallel-layered heat-extraction system, was performed for a wide range of heat-extraction materials, and interfacial resistance values.

D.Ing. (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) / Solid state converters are showing considerable progress in all applications for power electronics, mainly because of the advances made in the field of power semiconductor devices. Higher frequencies and power ratings of converters are therefore possible, leading to more and more applications for these solid state converters in induction heating. The available knowledge in this fast evolving field is however limited, leading to numerous research possibilities. It is none the less important to learn to crawl before attempting to run and a systematic line is therefore followed in this research. The combination of the heating-coil and work-piece is a challenging electromagnetic problem, resembling a transformer with a short circuited secondary. The heating of the work-piece to above the Curie temperature causes considerable variations in the parameters of the load. A study of the influence of temperature on the physical properties of the heated material is therefore made to obtain an understanding of these variations and is aided by Finite Element Simulations. Numerous circuit topologies and switching strategies are possible candidates for induction heating, and a collection of more than thirty converters is presented. Each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages, of which a good understanding is necessary to obtain the most suitable converter for a certain application in this field. The behaviour of some of the most popular converters under typical load variations is investigated to facilitate the final decision. This knowledge is then applied to some every day applications. A converter is chosen both for an induction cooker and a surface heater, after the specific requirements for each have been identified. A detailed design procedure and experimental results are presented...

This thesis introduces a solution to the problem of time and memory space requirements associated with the manipulation/creation of solid state device layout. Through the use of a hierarchical organization of data and a tailored indexing technique, the software described here, referred to as Saw Draw, is capable of manipulating huge amounts of data in a short period of time. This program was written for surface acoustic wave (SAW) device layout but works for a broad range of devices to include semiconductors, microstrip and others. Due to the large number of details which must be stored for each SAW structure, simply displaying a typical SAW device can become exceedingly tedious. When an entire mask of devices is organized, disk storage requirements can become prohibitive. This software has been designed to minimize both of these critical problems. This work describes the capabilities, structure and special algorithms used in Saw Draw. Included is an example of how a SAW device might be created and a listing of the program code in the Appendix.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. August 2014. / The process of the computational discovery of materials for future technologies is a combination of numerical techniques and general scientific intuition to select elements and combine in order to form novel types of materials. Modern ab initio methods based on density functional theory are capable of predicting with a high level of accuracy the most stable ground state atomic configurations of any given material. Once the ground state configurations are established, the electronic, optical and mechanical properties of the novel bulk nitrides may be determined. Electronic properties of C3N4, CN2, SiN2, GeN2, C2N2(NH), Si2N2(NH), Ge2N2(NH) and Sn2N2(NH) are analysed by computing the Kohn-Sham band structures. The optical properties are investigated by calculating the real and the imaginary parts of the frequency-dependent dielectric constant. The mechanical properties are determined by calculating elastic constants, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, Vickers hardness, shear and bulk moduli.

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

There is significant need to improve the sensitivity and selectivity for detecting chemical and biological agents. This need exists in a myriad of human endeavors, from the monitoring of production of consumer products to the detection of infectious agents and cancers. Although many well established methodologies for chemical and biological sensing exist, such as mass spectrometry, gas or liquid phase chromatography, enzymelinked immunosorbent (ELISA) assays, etc., it is the goal of the work described herein to outline aspects of two specific platforms which can add two very important features, low cost and portability. The platforms discussed in this dissertation are organic semiconductor field-effect transistors (OFETS), in various architectural forms and chemical modifications, and ion channels immobilized in tethered lipid bilayers integrated with solid state devices. They take advantage of several factors to make these added features possible, low cost manufacturing techniques for producing silicon and organic circuits, low physical size requirements for the sensing elements, the capability to run such circuits on low power, and the ability of these systems to directly transduce a sensing event into an electrical signal, thus making it easier to process, interpret and record a signal. In the most basic OFET functionality, many types of organic semiconductors can be used to produce transistors, each with a slightly different range of sensitivities. When used in concert, they can produce a reversible chemical "fingerprint". These OFETS can also be integrated with silicon transistors - in a hybrid device architecture - to enhance their sensitivity while maintaining their reversibility. The organic semiconductors themselves can be chemically altered with the use of small molecule receptors designed for specific chemicals or chemical functional groups to greatly enhance the interaction of these molecules with the transistor. This increases both sensitivity and selectivity for discrete devices. Specially designed nanoscale OFET configurations with individually addressable gates can enhance the sensitivity of OFETS as well. Finally, ion channels can be selected for immobilization in tethered lipid bilayer sensors which are already inherently sensitive to the analyte of choice or can be genetically modified to include receptors for many kinds of chemical or biological agents. / text

For more than 20 years, scientists have studied solar cells made from organic semiconductors. Throughout this time, device structures have evolved from bilayer devices to bulk heterojunction (BHJ) devices and even though efficiencies are approaching 10%, scientists still know relatively little about the transport of charge carriers and recombination mechanisms in these materials. Novel structures, based on lateral BHJ solar cells, have proven to be versatile tools to study transport and recombination mechanisms. In addition, these structures can easily be employed by researchers and solar cell manufacturers to determine the quality and measure the improvement of their materials. For these studies, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):[6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) has been employed due to its wide use among researchers as well as potential for commercialization. DC photocurrent measurements as a function of device length have yielded the mobility-lifetime product and the generation rate of free carriers within these BHJ devices. In addition to these parameters, the recombination rate as a function of light intensity provides information about the mechanisms of recombination. For example, by measuring the recombination rate as a function of applied electric field and light intensity we have found that recombination is unimolecular in nature and shifts to bimolecular at increased electric field strengths. Additionally, the mobility-lifetime product, generation rate, and recombination mechanism have been studied as a function of applied electric field, illumination spectrum, illumination intensity, etc. This information has provided much insight on physics of the P3HT:PCBM material system which did not exist before these studies. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: This dissertation aims to demonstrate a new approach to fabricating solar cells for spectrum-splitting photovoltaic systems with the potential to reduce their cost and complexity of manufacturing, called Monolithically Integrated Laterally Arrayed Multiple Band gap (MILAMB) solar cells. Single crystal semiconductor alloy nanowire (NW) ensembles are grown with the alloy composition and band gap changing continuously across a broad range over the surface of a single substrate in a single, inexpensive growth step by the Dual-Gradient Method. The nanowire ensembles then serve as the absorbing materials in a set of solar cells for spectrum-splitting photovoltaic systems. Preliminary design and simulation studies based on Anderson's model band line-ups were undertaken for CdPbS and InGaN alloys. Systems of six subcells obtained efficiencies in the 32-38% range for CdPbS and 34-40% for InGaN at 1-240 suns, though both materials systems require significant development before these results could be achieved experimentally. For an experimental demonstration, CdSSe was selected due to its availability. Proof-of-concept CdSSe nanowire ensemble solar cells with two subcells were fabricated simultaneously on one substrate. I-V characterization under 1 sun AM1.5G conditions yielded open-circuit voltages (V_oc) up to 307 and 173 mV and short-circuit current densities (J_sc) up to 0.091 and 0.974 mA/cm<super>2</super> for the CdS- and CdSe-rich cells, respectively. Similar thin film cells were also fabricated for comparison. The nanowire cells showed substantially higher V_oc than the film cells, which was attributed to higher material quality in the CdSSe absorber. I-V measurements were also conducted with optical filters to simulate a simple form of spectrum-splitting. The CdS-rich cells showed uniformly higher V_oc and fill factor (FF) than the CdSe-rich cells, as expected due to their larger band gaps. This suggested higher power density was produced by the CdS-rich cells on the single-nanowire level, which is the principal benefit of spectrum-splitting. These results constitute a proof-of-concept experimental demonstration of the MILAMB approach to fabricating multiple cells for spectrum-splitting photovoltaics. Future systems based on this approach could help to reduce the cost and complexity of manufacturing spectrum-splitting photovoltaic systems and offer a low cost alternative to multi-junction tandems for achieving high efficiencies. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2014

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Dissertation (MSc (Chemistry))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Chemistry / unrestricted