This portfolio was organized to group innovations that might not be categorized in the other portfolios. Instruments are full systems integrated to perform complex electrical or mechanical work. Sensors are devices that detect, measure, or locate a physical property. Electronics are devices that manipulate electrons or control electrical energy, and the manufacturing processes that fabricate them.
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Funded through DOE’s Unlocking Lasting Transformative Resiliency Advances by Faster Actuation of power Semiconductor Technologies (ULTRAFAST) program, LLNL researchers (in Engineering) will develop an optically-controlled semiconductor transistor to enable future grid control systems to accommodate higher voltage and current than state-of-the-art devices. (Award amount: $3,000,000) while LLNL licensee Opcondys will develop a light-controlled grid protection device to suppress destructive, sudden transient surges on the grid such as those caused by lightning and electromagnetic pulses. (Award amount: $3,178,977)
The Department of Energy’s Technology Transfer Working Group recently awarded two Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) employees with “Best in Class” awards during their May spring meeting in Washington, D.C.
A trio of LLNL scientists have been inducted into the laboratory's Entrepreneur's Hall of Fame. Each developed technologies during or after their Lab careers that created major economic impacts or spawned new companies.
LLNL researchers have invented an ultrafast PCSS to drive a high-power laser diode with arbitrary pulse widths. These devices operate by supplying a high voltage (>10 kV) to one side of the switch. A short pulse of light illuminates the semiconductor, instantly turning it from highly resistive to highly conductive.
LLNL’s novel approach is to use diamond substrates with the desired donor (nitrogen) and acceptor (boron) impurities. In order to optically activate these deep impurities, the invention requires at least one externally or internally integrated light source. The initial exposure to light can set up the desired conduction current, after which the light source could be turned off. Even with…
Instead of producing individual DSRDs and bonding them, Tunnel DSRD's entire stack structure is grown epitaxially on a n- or p-type silicon wafer, resulting in a novel, “monolithic” stacked DSRD. A tunnel diode is essentially a diode with very highly doped p and n regions such that the reverse breakdown voltage is 200 meV or lower.
For cooling a high power device, the novel approach is to use a thermoelectric cooler (TEC)-based embedded substrate with proper selection of the TEC material as an active cooler. The packaging configuration of TEC allows cooling the entire die without the use of a fluid. The process is compatible with the thin film TEC material. Standard semiconductor processes can be used to manufacture…
For this method, a Silicon on Insulator (SOI) wafer is used to tailor etch rates and thickness in initial steps of the process. The simple three step process approach is comprised of grayscale lithography, deep reactive-ion etch (DRIE) and liftoff of the SOI wafer. The liftoff process is used to dissolve the insulating layer, thus separating sections of the wafer as individual silicon…
The approach is to use Charge Balance Layers (CBLs) to create a superjunction device in wide bandgap materials. These CBLs enable the device to effectively spread the electric field over 2- or 3-dimensions within a semiconductor voltage sustaining layer instead of 1-dimension, thereby increasing the maximum voltage a device is capable of withstanding. The challenge of using CBLs is the…
LLNL has developed a reference electrode that is a great improvement on the widely used silver or platinum wire QRE commonly used in electrochemistry in ionic liquids. This new reference electrode, based on a silver-sulfide coated silver wire, exhibits greatly improved stability over a QRE. The stability of our RE approaches that of the Ag/Ag+ RE, but unlike the Ag/Ag+ RE, the RE reported here…