Patrick E. Hopkins, the Whitney Stone Professor of Engineering at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, received a $690,000 grant as part of the Department of Energy’s $118 million endeavor to advance fundamental energy research.
Hopkins, who is also a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, will investigate how various materials, bonded together, conduct heat across their interfaces based on different manufacturing and heterogeneous integration methods. Heterogeneous integration combines diverse materials or technologies into one system, enhancing device performance, efficiency and functionality across applications.
A better understanding of the thermal properties of different combinations of materials can lead researchers to design devices that are more energy efficient.
“Reducing energy consumption in efficiently manufactured devices lowers costs and minimizes environmental impact. This will improve thermal management, thus increasing performance of the power electronics that will form the energy efficient grid of the future and increase efficiency of electric vehicles,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins’ project is part of the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team that makes up A Center for Power Electronics Materials and Manufacturing Exploration, a new Energy Frontier Research Center established by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at the U.S. Department of Energy. APEX researchers will work on projects that will transform the future of efficient, sustainable energy.
APEX is the second Energy Frontier Research Center working with UVA researchers. Hopkins, along with UVA Engineering materials science professor Jon Ihlefeld, also collaborate under another EFRC that is led by Penn State University, the Center for 3D Ferroelectric Microelectronics. There, Hopkins works with ferroelectric materials — substances that can change their polarization direction when exposed to an electric field, making them useful for sensors, memory storage and some medical equipment. His research looks at how these materials conduct and manage heat while they’re being manufactured.
APEX will receive a total of $12.9 million in funding over the next four years. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences program, through which the center is funded, supports basic science research that can open pathways to new energy technologies.