Though usually competing for individual research grants or sports championships, three schools from the SEC, Big East and Big Ten are teaming up to combat new issues in advanced power electronics.
The Auburn University physics department will be part of a unique cooperative research initiative, collaborating with Purdue and Rutgers universities to study component efficiency in advanced power electronics.
The initiative, sponsored by the II-VI Foundation, will have up to $1 million in funding as the three universities work with silicon carbide switches in semiconductors, also known as "MOSFETs."
"We are excited to be a part of this unique research initiative with the II-VI Foundation," said Sarit Dhar, assistant professor of physics and Auburn's primary investigator in the upcoming project.
"The foundation has funded individual efforts before, but this is the first time it has sponsored an initiative where multiple universities are working on the same problem."
While the majority of electronics are made from silicon, the material is not able to withstand the high temperatures involved with the high currents and voltages of some advanced devices.
Silicon carbide is different because it has a wide band gap, which allows the compound to work under harsh conditions with greater energy efficiency.
As the demand for more power and efficiency increases with newer technology, silicon carbide switches are solutions that do not demand the cooling silicon materials need.
Auburn's work on the initiative will be focused primarily at the material sciences level, looking at silicon carbide at a fundamental level and understanding all of the compound's properties.
"The three universities involved will be looking at silicon carbide MOSFETs at three different angles," Dhar said.
"There is also an overlap when you are all working on the same problem. We will share our research and help each other instead of looking at it as three separate studies."
The cooperation between Auburn, Purdue and Rutgers can be attributed to the initiative's coordinator, John Williams, physics professor emeritus at Auburn.
During his 37 years at Auburn, Williams maintained relationships with Rutgers' Leonard Feldman and Purdue's James Cooper.
The three universities started working together in the late 1990s on the Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Physics Program. Williams retired December 2011.
"We recognized the work being done at Auburn, Rutgers and Purdue provides three different viewpoints on the same tough problem, and we have a coordinator in John Williams who really understands the strengths and dynamics of each contributing program," said Carl Johnson, II-VI Foundation chairman and co-founder.
"In the past we would have had to fund and administer these programs separately, but with John as the coordinator, we were able to combine efforts for the first time."
Claude Ahyi, assistant professor, and physics graduate students Aaron Modic and Chunkun Jiao will join Williams and Dhar in the research initiative.
The II-VI Foundation's mission statement is to "encourage and enable students to pursue a career in engineering, science and mathematics while maintaining a standard of excellence in that pursuit."
Dhar and others involved in the initiative echoed the foundation's mission while describing the initiative's goals.
"Our effort to educate and train young scientists and engineers in a leading, interdisciplinary technology development program for advanced power electronics is an investment in our country's future," Feldman said at the initiative's announcement ceremony in April.
"Such young people will form a pool of talent that our country must have to significantly increase the efficiency with which we use electrical energy, to hasten national energy independence and to maintain our nation's scientific competitiveness."
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