€1m for US-Ireland GaN research
A research partnership, called the Nano-GaN Power Electronic Devices project, involving institutes in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the US has secured €1m in funding to develop new ways of harnessing converted electricity. The project will seek to improve the efficiency of converting electrical power by up to 25 percent.
The US-Ireland Collaborative Research on Nano-GaN Power Electronic Devices will be led by Peter Parbrook and Anne-Marie Kelleher in Tyndall; John Shen at the Illinois Institute of Technology; and Miryam Arredondo-Arechavala of Queens University Belfast.
"This will be the first time nanostructures using GaN will be used for power electronics, " said Parbrook, Stokes Professor of Nitride Materials & Devices at Tyndall National Institute. "We will attempt to bend out the material's defects, making it more stable and hence more reliable in the conversion process. It has the potential to produce significant energy saving efficiencies that will benefit people in the home and at work."
Improving the efficiency of converting electrical power by up to 25 percent would represent a huge financial saving to the consumer and could substantially reduce global carbon emissions. This issue is of immense importance to all the countries involved in this research, with Ireland in particular importing nearly 90 percent of its energy, leaving it very perceptible to changes in the international markets.
