A Center for Power Electronics Materials and Manufacturing Exploration (APEX)

Director

Nancy Haegel

Lead Institution

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Class

2024-2028

Mission

To expand interdependent materials and manufacturing choices for substrates, ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors, contacts, thermal sinks, and critical interfacial layers and advance fundamental understanding of structurally, chemically, thermally, and electrically dissimilar interfaces.

Partner Institutions

National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory
Colorado School of Mines
Johns Hopkins University
Kyma Technologies
Morgan State University
University of Virginia

Quick Facts

Single Slide Overview
Technical Summary
Website TBD

BES Staff Contact

Claudia Cantoni

Aaron Holder

Grand Challenges Addressed

Grand
Challenge #1

Grand
Challenge #2

Grand
Challenge #5

Transformative Opportunities Addressed

Understanding the Critical Roles of Heterogeneity, Interfaces, and Disorder

Trans. Opp. #2

Exploiting Transformative Advances in Imaging Capabilities across Multiple Scales

Trans. Opp. #5

BES Reports Addressed

Highlights

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Illustration showing a crystal structure, with balls connected by lines and a blue ball increasing in size moving above the structure

Thin Materials and Fat Electrons: A Recipe for New Quantum Phenomena

The 2D material cerium silicon iodide contains the same heavy electrons responsible for heavy fermion physics, something so far seen only in 3D materials.

Applying a voltage to lanthanum strontium manganite (LSMO) can cause it to separate into distinct regions with dramatically different magnetic properties, as illustrated by the red and blue colors in the above figure.

Tuning Magnetism With Voltage Opens a New Path to Neuromorphic Circuits

Experiments show that applied voltage can dramatically alter the magnetic properties of quantum materials.