Multidimensional Power Devices in WBG and UWBG Semiconductors

Power device advances are driven by materials and device architectures. In addition to using wide-bandgap (WBG) or ultrawide-bandgap (UWBG) materials, multidimensional architectures – such as superjunction, multi-channel and multi-gate – can also improve device performance. These structures enable electrostatics engineering in additional dimensions and bring the benefits of geometrical scaling into power devices. This talk provides a tutorial of multidimensional power devices recently demonstrated in WBG and UWBG semiconductors such as GaN, SiC, Ga₂O₃, etc. Device physics, processing technologies, and converter applications will be covered. Finally, the performance limits, geometrical scaling laws, and material figure-of-merits will be discussed for multidimensional power devices to provide a roadmap for their future development.

Yuhao Zhang

Yuhao Zhang is an assistant professor leading the power semiconductor research at the Center for Power Electronics Systems of Virginia Tech, USA. He received his Ph. D. and S. M. from MIT and his B. S. from Peking University. He has authored over 150 journal papers and conference proceedings and holds 5 granted U. S. patents. He received several prestigious awards such as the 2019 IEEE George Smith Award, 2021 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and 2023 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award.