PhD student Anastasios Arvanitopoulos passes viva with minor corrections

After a rather long and thorough examination, my PhD student Anastasios Arvanitopoulos passed his viva with minor corrections on the 26th June 2020. Special thanks to the examiners, Dr Peter Gammon (University of Warwick), Prof Stephen Finney (University of Edinburgh) and Prof Alexander Chroneos (Coventry University) for conducting the examination. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the examination was done through MS Teams.

Congratulations to Anastasios for such an excellent job. His PhD thesis consists state-of-the-art reference point on 3C- Silicon Carbide research.

Anastasios Arvanitopoulos at his desk after having passed the examination.

Appointment at the University of Nottingham

Since January 2020 I have been appointed Assistant Professor of Electrical Power Electronics at the University of Nottingham. With my appointment I join the Power Electronics Machines and Control Group, which is one of the leading teams conducting research on Power Electronics. I also join the Electrical and Electronics Engineering team which is ranked 1st in the UK for electrical and electronic engineering in The Guardian University Guide 2020.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/power-electronics-machines-and-control-group/

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ugstudy/subject/Electrical-and-Electronic-Engineering

Coventry Power Electronics team at the launch event of our C-ALPS and FEV UK building

Coventry and FEV have joined forces with the launch of the new FEV UK Headquarters building at the Coventry University Technology Park. The new building and research facility hosts the Coventry University Centre for Advanced Low-Carbon Propulsion Systems (C-ALPS) which aims to become a new centre of excellence where the academic knowledge hand in hand with industry create the propulsion systems of the future.

The facility opened on Thursday 21st March and during the launch event our team prepared a demonstration and presentation of the research undertaken. Photos of the team’s presentation during the event are shown below.

The power electronics team of Power and Energy lab led by Dr. Neo Lophitis has become key member of the new C-ALPS research group.

Middle: Dr. Neophytos (Neo) Lophitis – Assistant Professor
Left: Mr. Samuel Perkins – PhD student of 4H-SiC devices
Right: Mr. Anastasios (Tasos) Arvanitopoulos – PhD student of 3C-SiC devices

The full power electronics C-ALPS team (left to right): Mr. Panayiotis (Panos) Panayiotou; Dr. Soroush Faramehr; Prof. Petar Igic; Dr. Neophytos (Neo) Lophitis; Mr. Samuel Perkins; Mr. Anastasios (Tasos) Arvanitopoulos


Also in the news:
“Coventry and FEV have joined forces to develop a new £50m state-of-the-art facility for creating cleaner mobility, giving a major boost to the UK automotive industry. ” https://www.coventry.ac.uk/news/coventry-university-and-fev-join-forces-to-launch-50m-centre-for-cleaner-mobility/

Paper accepted at the IEEE IECON 2018

The following paper has been accepted for presentation at the 44th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON) 2018, to be held in Washington, D.C., Oct. 21-23, 2018.

  • Richard Stocker, Neophytos Lophitis, Asim Mumtaz, “Development of 1d Distributed Electro-Thermal Li-Ion Cell Model” , 44th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IECON) 2018

12th European Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ECSCRM)

The following paper has been accepted for presentation at the 12th European Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ECSCRM) 2018.

  • A. Tiwari, M. Antoniou, N. Lophitis, S. Perkins, T. Trajkovic, F. Udrea, “Performance improvement of 10kV SiC IGBTs with retrograde p-well”, The 12th European Conference on Silicon Carbide and Related Materials (ECSCRM), Birmingham, UK, Sept. 2018

The research on 4H-SiC IGBTs is funded by the EPSRC Underpinning Power Electronics Switch Optimization theme with partners from Warwick, Newcastle and Cambridge.

Papers accepted at the International Seminar on Power Semiconductors (ISPS)

The following papers have been accepted for presentation at the International Seminar on Power Semiconductors (ISPS).

  •  A. Arvanitopoulos, S. Perkins, M. Antoniou, L. Fan, M. Jennings, K. Gyftakis, N. Lophitis, “On the development of the 3C-SiC Power Law and its applicability for the Evaluation of Termination Structures”, International Symposium on Power Semiconductors (ISPS), Czech Republic, Prague, Aug. 2018.
  • S. Perkins, A. Arvanitopoulos, M. Antoniou, T. Trajkovic, F. Udrea, N. Lophitis, “>10kV 4H-SiC n-IGBTs for Elevated Temperature Environments”, International Symposium on Power Semiconductors (ISPS), Czech Republic, Prague, Aug. 2018.

The work on 4H-SiC IGBTs is funded by the EPSRC Underpinning Power Electronics Switch Optimization theme . The work on 3C-SiC is aligned with the H2020 3C-SiC Hetero-epitaxiALLy grown on silicon compliancE substrates and 3C-SiC substrates for sustaiNable wide-band-Gap powEr devices (CHALLENGE) project.

EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics – 2018 Annual Conference

Coventry University featured as one of twelve member institutions of the EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics organising the 2018 Annual Conference of the Centre that took place in Loughborough on the 4th and 5th of July

 

Neo Lophitis and PhD students Anastasios Arvanitopoulos and Samuel Perkins represented Coventry University by presenting the following research:

  • Arvanitopoulos, S. Perkins, M. Jennings, M. Antoniou, F. Li, K. Gyftakis and N. Lophitis, “Carrier Transport mechanisms contributing to the sub-threshold current in 3C-SiC-on-Si Schottky Barrier Diodes”, EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics Loughborough, 2018.
  • S. Perkins, A. Arvanitopoulos, K. Gyftakis and N. Lophitis, “The Static Performance of Commercial GaN-on-Si Devices at Elevated Temperatures”, EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics Loughborough, 2018.
  • S. Perkins, M. Antoniou, A. Tiwari, A. Arvanitopoulos, T. Trajkovic, F. Udrea and N. Lophitis, “>10kV 4H-SiC n-IGBTs for Elevated Temperature Environments”, EPSRC Centre for Power Electronics Loughborough, 2018.

MSc in Electrical Automotive Engineering

We are launching our new course, MSc in Electrical Engineering for which a launch event is organised on Wednesday 13th June 9.45am-1pm at Coventry University (Engineering and Computing Building, CV12JH). Come and ask questions to an expert panel made up of relevant experts from both industry and academia.

To register, click here: https://goo.gl/ojjRRW or visit the course website which can be found here: https://www.coventry.ac.uk/course-structure/PG/2018-19/eec/electrical-automotive-engineering-msc/

The course structure is as below:

Semester 1:

  • Electrical Machines
  • Power semiconductors and converters
  • Sensor and Measurement Technology
  • Automotive electronics and embedded systems

Semester 2

  • Automotive cybersecurity
  • Automotive Networking and Signal Processing
  • Energy Storage and High Voltage Systems
  • Global Professional Development – Entrepreneurship

Semester 3

  • Individual Project