WEEK 1

 About us: We are five EEE students at the University of Liverpool. This is a blog for our second year project about devices for renewable energy. 

Week 1 

January 31, 2025 

Our research journey began with understanding GaN Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs) and their role in high-efficiency power applications. Since this was a research-based project, we focused entirely on reviewing existing studies and analyzing theoretical data instead of conducting experiments.


To keep things organized, we divided the work among our five team members. Two members focused on gathering and summarizing literature about GaN SBDs. Another two analyzed previous research papers to identify key electrical parameters. The final member learned how to use Origin software to plot and visualize the data we would work with.

At first, we felt overwhelmed with the technical depth of the topic, but after some discussions and reading, we started making sense of the concepts. Using data from literature, we recreated the current density-voltage (J-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics. The J-V curve showed a typical Schottky diode response, where the current increased exponentially at lower voltages. The C-V curve indicated that capacitance decreased as reverse bias increased due to the widening depletion region. Seeing these graphs take shape made us feel more confident in our understanding.



Next Week's Task: We will analyze vital electrical parameters—ideality factor, turn-on voltage, and ON-resistance—using the plotted data.

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