2. OUTLINE
Overview of the Department
Research and Education Projects in Power and
Energy Systems
New Initiatives in the Pipeline
Final Remarks
3. VISION
The Department of Electrical & Computer
Engineering will provide
programs of the highest quality
to produce world class engineers
who can address challenges of the
millennium.
4. ECE DEGREE PROGRAMS
B.S. Electrical Engineering (128 credits)
Concentrations:
oComputer Engineering
oFields and Devices
oSystems and Communications
oGeneral Electrical Engineering
M.S. Computer Engineering (31 - 34 credits)
M.S. Electrical Engineering (31 - 34 credits)
Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering (42 credits beyond
master )*
6. ECE PROGRAM STATS (2011-2012)
Pre-major undergraduate students
in the Pre-Engineering Program (720 students for the
College)
409 Undergraduate students in the B.S.E.E. Program
346 Male, 63 Females (15%), 81.67% Hispanics
100 BS degrees awarded
71 MS students in 2 degree programs:
67 EE and 14 CpE
35 MS degrees awarded
42 Ph.D. Students
35 Male & 7 Female
6 Ph.D. degrees awarded
12. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
Expertise
David Zubia (electrical engineering)
Memristors
Patterned solar cells
Nanoscale crystal growth
Eric MacDonald (electrical engineering)
Rad-Hard CMOS design
Jose Mireles (electrical engineering, UACJ-CICTA)
MEMS devices and packaging
John McClure (materials science)
Solar cells
ZnCdTe layers using CSS
Stella Quinones (electrical engineering)
CdTe single crystal growth using CSS
Electrode-less plating
Joseph Pierluissi (electrical engineering)
Memristors
Electromagnetics
13. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
NanoFabrication Facility
2,500 SF clean, 6,000 SF total
Class-100 & Class-1000
23 Major pieces of equipment
Undergraduate
Master
Doctoral
14. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
Microsystems-Enabled PVs
Use MEMS technology to make miniature solar cells
JV curves of micro cells with different passivation schemes
35
(111) Si wafer KOH Release 30
current density (mA/cm2)
metal contact 25
Nitride
20
A) protection implanted
against doping 15
etch
10
Etch front
5
KOH KOH KOH
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Voltage (V)
(111) oriented wafer 1.24% efficient no passivation
2.95% efficient: Alumina passivation & hot plate anneal@ 430C
4.14% efficient: alumina passivation and 30min anneal in Forming Gas
5.94% Nitride passivation low ammonia
7.40% nitride passivation high ammonia
10.30% efficient optimized nitride 1hr anneal at 450C
12.2% efficient optimized nitride 2hr anneal at 450C
14.85% efficient optimized nitride 3hr anneal at 450C
250um
18. MISSION/SCOPE OF WORK
Formed within the Engineering College at the University of Texas
at El Paso.
Research focus in the following areas:
Power Electronics
Electric Power
Electro-thermal Modeling of Electric Energy Storage Devices
Modeling and Control of Hybrid Electric Energy Storage Systems
Modeling and Control of Piezoelectric Traveling Wave Rotary
Ultrasonic Motors
Strengthen power electronics and power systems expertise at
UTEP.
19. EXPERTISE/CAPABILITY
Modeling, Design and Analysis of Piezoelectric
Devices
Modeling using Finite Volume Methods
Circuits equivalents
Modeling, Design and Analysis of Hybrid Electric
Energy Storage Systems
Multyphisics modeling of batteries and ultracapacitors
Modeling and control of hybrid electric energy storage
systems
COMSOL, MATLAB, SIMetrix simulations
20. EXPERIMENTAL CAPABILITIES
Characterization of piezoelectric traveling wave rotary
ultrasonic motors and other piezoelectric devices
Characterization of energy storage devices such as Li-Ion
batteries and ultracapacitors
Characterization of hybrid electric energy storage systems
21.
22. USDA: GREEN ENGINEERS
Multi-university $3.2M collaboration led by Dr .Heidi Taboada (PI)
and Dr. Jose Espiritu to to produce more scientists and
engineers who can develop new alternative energy sources and
ways to increase energy efficiency.
Offering in the spring semester a course for senior and graduate
students on “Energy Sustainability” as an introduction to the
different types of energy sources; carbon emissions and other
environmental impacts; electric power grid and the future smart
grid.
The course has a final project where the students propose a
device or a system to better exploit energy sources.
23. ETAP DONATION: $125K
Donation of ETAP from Operations Technology Inc.
Obtained an educational license for the ETAP
Academic edition suit – 25 Bus, 20 campus users.
Support for the modules: Short-Circuit ANSI & IEC,
Load flow, Motor acceleration, Harmonics, Transient
Stability, unbalanced load flow and Wind turbine
generator.
Used to teach students about power systems and
training in collaboration with RCES
24. ADDITIONAL MODELING TOOLS
Use of several tools to model and simulate scenarios related to
smart grid technologies. (power, communications and signals)
Available academic licenses of OPNET® Modeler , NI LabView® ,
MATLAB, ETAP and MathCAD
Computer modeling lab with 20 stations
Student training on different tools involving the creation and
testing of heuristic rules to improve energy production and
consumption.
Student generated lessons for regular courses and outreach
activities
25. NEW INITIATIVES
Develop an synergistic research group: Power and Energy
Systems.
Strategic Hire
Develop a Power and Energy Systems concentration at the
graduate and undergraduate levels.
Establishment of the Power and Energy Systems
Laboratory.
Energy conversion
Power Electronics and its applications in control of power
systems
Renewable energy system
Estimated cost of $500k
26. FINAL REMARKS
ECE is building its capabilities in Power and Energy
Systems
Strategic importance at the College and at the
Department
Welcome the opportunity to develop partnerships in
the power and energy sector at the regional, state and
national level
27. DR. MIGUEL VELEZ-REYES
PROFESSOR AND CHAIR
E L E C T R I C A L A N D C O M P U T E R E N G I N E E R I N G D E P T.
U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S AT E L PA S O
500W UNIVERSITY DRIVE
E L PAS O , T X 7 9 9 6 8
PH. 915-747-5470
FAX 915-747-7871
E - M A I L : M V E L E Z R E Y E S @ U T E P. E D U
Editor's Notes
Facilities Funding: UTEP, University of Texas System, Texas Instruments Foundation (TI)Research Funding sources are NSF, National Institute for Nano Engineering (NINE), Amethyst Research Inc, (ARI)
NanoMaterials Integration Lab FacultyInternational Collaboration with Dr. Jose Mireles from Universidad Autonoma de Ciudad Juarez (UACJ)
This research uses established microsystems technologies to make miniature solar cells. Lower left images show the tiny solar cells made of silicon and gallium arsenide. The graph shows that surface passivation was key to obtaining high efficiency. The schematic drawings in the upper left show how the cells are interconnected. Interestingly, high voltages in the 100’s of volts are possible by connecting hundreds of cells in series. This work was a collaboration between NanoMIL and Sandia.
This work is funded by the National Institute for Nano Engineering (NINE) and is a collaboration between UTEP and Sandia. The idea is to combine nanopatterning with alloy compositional grading to improve the efficiency of the cells. It is applied to the ZnCdTe material system which is usually deposited as a polycrystalline film. The goal is to dramatically improve the spatial and morphological uniformity of the crystal grains. The project has computational and experimental aspects. Molecular dynamics is used to simulate the patterned crystal growth. The experimental capability was developed to deposit the patterned ZnCdTe grains.
This new collaboration is a continuation and expansion of previous work. We anticipate making a public announcement in a few weeks on new major funding for this work. The main idea for this work is to create a capability to directly correlate fabrication with microstructure and performance at an atomic scale. The second phase of the project will apply the capability to achieve record breaking voltages in ZnCdTe-based solar cells. The project has computation and experimental aspects. The main collaborators are UTEP, Sandia National Labs, and the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. We are also collaborating with:USCB through a new NSF PREM (Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials) CenterAmethyst Research Incorporated through an NSF SBIR grant,And Purdue University through an NSF IGERT grantThe project will address the fundamental barriers to achieving high voltages in ZnCdTe-based solar cells. These barriers are the lattice mismatch between CdTe/CdS which create high defect densities in the material, and the non-uniform spatial and morphological of the crystal grains. The project will address these barriers by adding Zn to the CdTe to reduce the lattice mismatch and by using the nanopatterning to achieve high spatial and morphological uniformity.
