OPEN 2018 Projects

Qromis Inc. will develop an improved selective area doping fabrication method for GaN, ultimately enabling a broader range of higher-performing, manufacturable, and scalable GaN power devices. The team seeks to improve the process using magnesium (Mg) diffusion, in which atoms move from an area of high concentration to a lower one at high temperatures. In particular, Qromis seeks to understand what controls the Mg diffusion rate in GaN to better leverage the phenomenon for the production of high-performance devices.

Ionic Materials will develop a more energy dense (by volume and mass) rechargeable battery based on an aluminum-alkaline chemistry. At the center of Ionic Materials’ innovation is a new polymer-based material that suppresses the formation of undesired chemical products that prevent aluminum-alkaline batteries from recharging. Aluminum is a highly abundant natural resource and costs much less than cobalt, nickel, and lithium, key elements in today’s state-of-the-art batteries.

The University of Colorado Boulder aims to revolutionize thermoelectrics, the semiconductor devices that convert heat flow into electricity without moving parts or emitting pollutants, by creating a “nanophononic” thermoelectric device. This concept relies on a newly discovered phenomenon where closely packed tiny structures added perpendicular to a thin solid membrane impede the flow of heat down the membrane through atomic vibrations (phonons). The device is predicted to convert waste heat to electricity at twice the efficiency of today’s best thermoelectric devices.

The University of California-Santa Barbara will develop a low power, low-cost solution to overcome power and bandwidth scaling limitations facing hyperscale data centers and exponential growth in global data traffic. The FRESCO transceiver leverages advances in fundamental laser physics and photonic integration to enable terabit, coherent optical data transmission inside data centers through chip-scale spectrally pure and ultra-stable wavelength division multiplexed laser light sources .

Geegah will develop an inexpensive wireless sensor, using ultrasound from MHz to GHz, that can measure water content, soil chemicals, root growth, and nematode pests (a type of small worm), allowing farmers to improve the output of biofuel crops while reducing water and pesticide use. The reusable device will include a sensor suite and radio interface that can communicate to aboveground farm vehicles. This novel integration of sensing and imaging technologies has the potential to provide a low-cost solution to precision sensor-based digital agriculture.

Pennsylvania State University is developing a novel manufacturing process that prints integrated sensors into complex systems such as gas turbine hot section parts for real time monitoring. Incorporating these durable, integrated sensors into the geometry would provide critical knowledge of key operating conditions such as temperature of key components and their thermal heat fluxes. These sensors enable the unique possibility to gain direct knowledge of critical parameters currently inferred with only varying degrees of success.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison will develop an online monitoring tool to assess the stability of the power grid. The tool will determine options to increase grid stability as well as detect and isolate forced oscillations, which are often indicative of faulty control actions at plants and can be potentially dangerous if they excite a natural mode of the system. To accomplish this, the team will fine-tune the underlying computations, develop alarm and notification procedures, and design a user-friendly and practical tool interface.

The Georgia Tech Research Corporation (GTRC) will develop a new approach to internally cool permanent magnet motors. The technology could dramatically improve electric motors’ power density and reduce system size and weight. To do so, the team will integrate motor and drive electronics into a unique system packaging incorporating an embedded advanced thermal management system. They will also develop wide bandgap power electronics packaging to enable high power density operations at higher temperature.

The University of Colorado Boulder will develop 3D-printed, biodegradable soil sensor nodes to enable farmers to precisely assess soil moisture and nitrogen levels, which will provide insight into crop water and fertilizer needs. These low cost nodes can be embedded in a field to accurately and continuously monitor soil health for an entire season before degrading completely and harmlessly into the soil. This approach could enable real-time soil monitoring by farmers, enabling them to reduce agriculture’s energy footprint and water needs and increase soil carbon.

Hewlett Packard Labs will develop a low energy consumption, ultra-efficient, high-speed technology to transmit data as light in high-performance computing systems and data centers. The team will combine recent breakthroughs in low-cost laser manufacturing and ultra-efficient photonic tuning technology with their established platform. It will demonstrate a fully integrated optical transceiver capable of sending data faster than 1,000 gigabytes per second over 40 simultaneous channels, even in rigorous practical operating conditions with widely varying temperatures.