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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Matthew Deakin, Professor Phil Taylor
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
In this work, the possibility of using different generations of $\beta$-Ga2O3 as an ultra-wide-bandgap power semiconductor device for high power converter applications is explored. The competitiveness of $\beta$-Ga2O3 for power converters in still not well quantified, for which the major determining factors are the on-state resistance, $R_{{\rm ON}}$, reverse blocking voltage, $V_{{\rm BR}}$, and the thermal resistance, $R_{{\rm th}}$. We have used the best reported device specifications from literature, both in terms of reports of experimental measurements and potential demonstrated by computer-aided designs, to study power converter performance for different device generations. Modular multilevel converter-based voltage source converters are identified as a topology with significant potential to exploit these device characteristics. The performance of MVDC & HVDC converters based on this topology have been analysed, focusing on system level power losses and case temperature rise at the device level. Comparisons of these $\beta$-Ga2O3 devices are made against contemporary SiC-FET and Si-IGBTs. The results have indicated that although the early $\beta$-Ga2O3 devices are not competitive to incumbent Si-IGBT and SiC-FET modules, the latest experimental measurements on NiOX/$\beta$-Ga2O3 and $\beta$-Ga2O3/diamond significantly surpass the performance of incumbent modules. Furthermore, parameters derived from semiconductor-level simulations indicate that the $\beta$-Ga2O3/diamond in superjunction structures delivers even superior performance in these power converters.
Author(s): Jahdi S, Kumar AS, Deakin M, Taylor PC, Kuball M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics
Year: 2024
Volume: 5
Pages: 554-564
Online publication date: 10/04/2024
Acceptance date: 02/04/2018
Date deposited: 22/04/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2644-1314
Publisher: IEEE
URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/OJPEL.2024.3387076
DOI: 10.1109/OJPEL.2024.3387076
Data Access Statement: All underlying data for this article are provided within, or in the cited references.
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