Date of Graduation

12-2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering (PhD)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Electrical Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Mantooth, H. Alan

Committee Member

Balda, Juan C.

Second Committee Member

McCann, Roy A.

Third Committee Member

Ang, Simon S.

Fourth Committee Member

Fu, Huaxiang

Keywords

Applied sciences; Gate turn off; Power electronics; Power semiconductor devices; Silicon carbide; Thyristors

Abstract

Silicon carbide (SiC) power semiconductor devices have emerged in the past decade as the most promising technology for next generation power electronic applications ranging for electric vehicles to grid-connected power routing and conversion interfaces. Several devices have been developed, and even some have been released commercially, including diodes, MOSFETs, JFETs, thyristors, gate turn-off thyristors, and IGBTs. The model development, characterization and experimental validation of SiC p-type Gate Turn-off Thyristors (GTO) is presented in this work. The GTO device in this work is being used as part of a SiC-based solid-state fault current limiter under development at the University of Arkansas' National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission. The developed model is a level-3 physics-based model, that predicts on-state and switching behavior with high fidelity. The model also incorporates temperature effects of both a physical and empirical nature such that it will accurately predict device performances from 25 °C to +175 °C. Custom gate drivers and test configurations were designed to accurately characterize and test an 8 kV p-type SiC GTO provided by Cree. The measured data was used to validate the model's performance.

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