The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has awarded SEK 835 million in grants to 30 projects in medicine, science, and technology that have the potential to lead to future scientific breakthroughs. The Foundation applies a strict peer-review procedure, whereby applications are assessed by the leading international researchers in each field.
Next-generation semiconductors
Vanya Darakchieva, Professor of Solid State Physics, is one of the three scientists from Lund University to be awarded this grant. She receives SEK 26 million over five years for the project “Transforming ceramics into next-generation semiconductors”.
The vision of the project is to develop a new type of environmentally friendly ultra-wide band gap (UWBG) semiconductors based on metal oxides and metal nitrides. Ultra-wide bandgap is a property of some semiconductors that allows them to handle much higher voltages and temperatures compared to common semiconductor materials, such as silicon.
Power electronic components
This enables the development of electrical components that can handle high power with a very high energy efficiency, as well as new power conversion concepts that can drastically reduce energy losses. UWBG materials can be used in power electronic components that operate more efficiently under extreme conditions, for example in power transmission or high-performance electronics.
“I’m very grateful because with this project we get a unique chance to focus on unexplored high-field and non-equilibrium physics phenomena in ultra-wide bandgap semiconductors in a holistic way encompassing synthesis, theory, modeling, characterization, and nanoelectronics device design and fabrication. This empowers our team to become an important contender in the world race for finding solutions for creating the future smart energy grid and the electrification of transportation,” says Vanya Darakchieva.
Projects funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
This year, three researchers from Lund University received the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. They are Vanya Darakchieva, Joan Yuan, and Filipe Pereira, sharing a total of SEK 87 million for research into the semiconductors of the future, our immunological memory, and the next generation of gene therapies.