Electric Engineering PhD opportunity

Applications are requested for multiple Research Fellow (Postdoc) positions on power electronics with Prof. Raja Ayyanar, full Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Arizona State University.


For all of the positions, a PhD degree in power electronics is sufficient. Candidates about to complete their PhDs may also apply. Extensive experience in developing high power density high efficiency Wide-Band-Gap device converters. Ability to construct and write papers for leading research journals and conferences.   
It is an advantage for a candidate to have expertise in any of the following areas: MHz GaN DC-DC converter, soft-switching, PV converter design and control, gate driver design for WBG device, medium voltage converter such as modular multilevel converter, SiC based converter design and its gate driver design, solid state transformer.

The skills that is preferred for the candidate to have are: DSP & FPGA programming, PCB layout, circuit simulation, power circuit and driver circuit hardware design, circuit debugging.



Research Focus and Goals

The successful candidates will work with Prof. Ayyanar's group and also with Professor Qin Lei’s group to develop, implement and/or evaluate an extremely high power density and high efficiency GaN device based PV converter using the transformerless, soft-switched, high boost ratio and low voltage stress dc-dc converter for PV string converter and medium voltage PV inverter.
The candidate will have the opportunity to develop research skills, improve domain knowledge and expertise, attend international conferences, and publish papers in the high-end journals.  

The initial term of appointment for Research Fellows shall be for 12 months, with funds available for an extension for multiple years subject to performance criteria. The remuneration and benefits are internationally competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience. Leave and medical benefits will be provided. The salary varies from $50,000/year to $65,000/year depending on the expertise level of the applicant.  The medical insurance will be provided.

Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the positions are filled. Candidates will be considered who would like to start from July 2018. Since additional positions may become available after that time, interested applicants can inquire later with Prof. Ayyanar and Prof. Qin Lei if any positions are open.

Job applications and inquiries should be sent to Prof. Ayyanar at rayyanar@asu.edu. Applicants should include a resume and indicate desired start time in the email message. Please also put “Job Application-POSTDOC 2018” in the subject line. The email message can also include any information required to understand how the applicant's background relates to the qualification requirements listed in this announcement.   

Dr. Ayyanar has extensive experience in power electronics and control for PV. He has published over 200 journal and conference papers in the area of power electronics and renewable energy integration and had led multiple PV R&D projects including PV inverters with SiC and GaN (PowerAmerica), a $3M effort (DOE, APS prime) on analysis and control for high PV penetration, a Solar America Initiative project on inverter control (DOE, BP Solar prime), multiple microgrid control projects, and PREDICTS (DOE, Sandia prime) project on PV microinverter reliability.  Dr. Lei’s expertise is in HVDC converters and MV drives, control, and SiC device application in MHz/kV system. She holds four U.S. patents and published about 40 technical papers in power electronics, and her lab currently has three funded projects.
Arizona State University (ASU) has one of the largest Power Systems and Power Electronics programs in nation. ASU has a new 2300 SF, well-equipped power electronics research laboratory capable of supporting high performance power conversion research at voltage levels up to 5 kV and power levels up to 500 kW. The lab consists of a high frequency power conversion section, a high voltage / high power section and real-time simulator / HIL section. The following figure shows a partial view of this facility.   


The available equipment includes several high end 4-channel and 8-channel oscilloscopes some with bandwidth above 2 GHz, high voltage dc power supplies and electronic loads, power analyzers, PV emulators, network analyzers, controllable ac sources, custom-built doublepulse tester for WBG device characterization, soldering and assembly equipment capable of supporting modern packages for WBG devices.  The research team has access to and routinely make use of 3D printing at ASU. Engineering Technical Services at ASU provides support for hardware fabrication. ASU has a large real time simulator system (OP5700 RCP/HIL Virtex7 FPGA-based Real-Time Simulator - 16 cores) from Opal-RT with eMEGASim, eHS RT power electronics tool box and several communication modules. They can also be interfaced with advanced inverters and other hardware such as RT-Box from Plexim, also available at ASU. Software license includes power electronics circuit simulation tool PLECS, MATLAB /Simulink /SimPowerSystem, Simplis with small-signal analysis capability, PSCAD, finite element analysis tool ANSYS with various modules suitable for magnetics design and optimization, and Cadence for PCB layout. The research team also has access to ASU’s high performance computing facility.


More information about Dr. Ayyanar and Dr. Lei's work is given at
https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/283502
https://ecee.engineering.asu.edu/project/qin-lei/

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