RFI Ultra-Fast-Triggered Semiconductor Devices for Enhanced System Resiliency | DE FOA 0002835

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002835

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) issued this opportunity as a Request for Information (RFI) titled "Ultra-Fast-Triggered Semiconductor Devices for Enhanced System Resiliency" (DE-FOA-0002835). It is not a grant solicitation and it is not accepting applications for funding. Instead, ARPA-E is gathering technical input to help shape a possible future research and development program. The agency is specifically looking for early-stage, clearly disruptive ideas that push beyond incremental improvements or simple integration of existing commercial technologies, with an emphasis on materials, devices, and module-level concepts.

At a high level, the RFI is focused on next-generation semiconductor power devices that can improve grid resiliency and reliability across an enormous power range, from kilowatts up to gigawatts. ARPA-E is asking for feedback from communities such as power electronics, optoelectronics, and photonics, with particular interest in ultra-fast switching devices that may be light controlled or light triggered. The motivation is that power electronic conversion systems can decouple and control interactions between generation sources, distribution networks, and loads, improving efficiency, controllability, and resilience. These benefits are already common in transportation and defense platforms like electric vehicles, ships, and aircraft, and ARPA-E is aiming to enable similar performance improvements at grid scale.

The RFI highlights several technical bottlenecks that limit todays power electronics in high- and medium-voltage (H/MV) grid environments. One major issue is that typical semiconductor devices still struggle to directly meet grid-relevant voltage and current levels, roughly in the 15 kV to 110 kV range. Because single devices cannot easily achieve these ratings, system designers often stack multiple devices in series or parallel and use multi-level module architectures to reach the needed voltage and current. That approach increases part count and complexity, raises cost, and can reduce reliability because there are more components and interconnects that can fail or drift out of tolerance.

Another central challenge is that faster switching, while attractive for reducing losses and shrinking converter size, tends to worsen electromagnetic interference (EMI). As switching edges get steeper and time scales compress, managing EMI can require extra filtering, shielding, layout constraints, and control complexity, all of which add cost and can undermine reliability. ARPA-E suggests that removing conventional electrical gate connections could help here, with optical interconnects or optical gate control being a promising direction because they can improve isolation and potentially reduce susceptibility to electrically coupled noise. Optical approaches could also create new options for coordinating stacked devices and improving timing synchronization in high-voltage modules.

The RFI also stresses the need for ultra-fast protection and fault response. Modern power electronics often have less thermal headroom than traditional grid equipment, meaning they can be damaged more quickly during faults or surges if they cannot shut down or commutate fast enough. ARPA-E notes that some grid threats, including certain space-weather-driven effects and some man-made threat scenarios, could produce fault conditions that evolve faster than existing protection systems can handle. This drives interest in devices and triggering methods that can respond on extremely short time scales to isolate faults before thermal overload or cascading failures occur.

On the materials side, ARPA-E frames the limits of single-device performance as partly dictated by fundamental properties like critical electric field. Wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductors have already extended performance beyond silicon, but ARPA-E is particularly interested in ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) materials because they could support higher voltage operation, lower losses, and higher temperature capability. At the same time, the RFI acknowledges that UWBG materials come with major practical hurdles, especially related to doping difficulty and material quality. One specific concept mentioned is optically stimulated ionization of deep dopants, which could potentially address doping limitations and enable device behaviors that are difficult to achieve with purely electrical control.

In addition to device-level speed and power handling, ARPA-E points to a broader grid trend: as power electronics become more prevalent as grid interfaces, control needs will shift toward much faster, lower-latency regulation. Instead of relying on the slow dynamics and inertia of mechanical systems, future grids may require sub-microsecond-scale control of power electronic interfaces. Without adequate speed and stability, even small disturbances can lead to voltage and frequency instabilities and potentially broader outages. For that reason, ARPA-E is not only interested in faster devices for protection, but also in faster devices that could enable new classes of high-bandwidth grid control strategies.

In terms of what ARPA-E is seeking from respondents, the RFI is primarily about material, device, and module innovations, not new converter topologies or grid integration plans built around existing devices. Respondents are encouraged to describe novel approaches such as UWBG-based devices, optical stimuli to modulate conductivity, and optical gate triggering to improve switching performance, EMI immunity, efficiency, and reliability. While circuit- and system-level integration is not the focus, ARPA-E still wants to understand how a given device performance demonstration could translate into meaningful improvements in grid protection speed, converter performance, or future control capabilities.

Administrative details are straightforward: responses were due by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on September 9, 2022, submitted as a PDF by email to ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov. The listing shows no award ceiling and no expected awards because it is purely an information-gathering effort rather than a funding opportunity. The full RFI was posted on the ARPA-E FOA website (arpa-e-foa.energy.gov).

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the opportunity zone benefits, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "RFI Ultra-Fast-Triggered Semiconductor Devices for Enhanced System Resiliency" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 11, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 09, 2022 Reponses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 500 p.m. Eastern Time on 09/09/2022. For further instruction, please review the RFI in its entirety at https://apra-e-foa.energy.gov.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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