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  • 3D printed electric vehicle

    3D-printed Electric Vehicle

    Printed at ORNL
  • mockup of future electric aircraft

    NASA Future Electric Aircraft

    Power electronics researched at UTK
  • curiosity rover on mars

    Curiosity Rover

    Equipped with IC designed at UTK
  • power flow controller at testing facility

    Power Flow Controller

    Designed and built by UTK and ORNL

Latest News

Costinett Honored for Achievements in Power Electronics and Educationmore_vert

This June, Associate Professor Daniel Costinett was presented the 2022 Richard M. Bass Out...

Costinett Honored for Achievements in Power Electronics and Educationclose

This June, Associate Professor Daniel Costinett was presented the 2022 Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power Electronics Society. Awards from the IEEE are among the highest honors bestowed on technical engineers worldwide. Each year, the Richard M. Bass Award honors an early-career engineer who has made outstanding contributions to the field of power electronics. “I... read more

Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox Beta Releasedmore_vert

Today we're releasing a public beta of the Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox for MATLAB.  This...

Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox Beta Releasedclose

Today we're releasing a public beta of the Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox for MATLAB.  This toolbox integrates our recent work in applying discrete time state space modeling to the steady-state analysis and design of power electronics.  The toolbox contains a a vsariety of functions and utilities that help speed up the process of analyzing, designing, and optimizing power converters.  The full source code is available (under MiT Open Source License) from the github repositoy, ... read more

Assistant/Associate Professor Position Availablemore_vert

The Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of...

Assistant/Associate Professor Position Availableclose

The Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) is seeking candidates for a tenure-track faculty position at the assistant or associate professor level in electrical engineering, in the area of power electronics, power systems, and related areas.  The successful candidate will be expected to develop and maintain sponsored research programs, supervise student research, teach at both the undergraduate and graduate... read more

Prof. Costinett Gives Power America Webinar on GaN-Based Wireless Power Transfermore_vert

PoTenntial Professor Daniel Costinett gave a Power America webinar on March 6th, 2019, covering the ...

Prof. Costinett Gives Power America Webinar on GaN-Based Wireless Power Transferclose

PoTenntial Professor Daniel Costinett gave a Power America webinar on March 6th, 2019, covering the fundamentals of wireless power transfer and ongoing research at the University of Tennessee employing GaN transistors in the design of conversion circuits, Abstract For consumer electronics, multi-load wireless power transfer (WPT) represents the ultimate transition away from wired technology; the commercialization of WPT technologies represents a paradigm shift comparable to the development of Wi... read more

Prof. Leon Tolbert Honored by SEC with 2020 Faculty Achievement Awardmore_vert

Leon Tolbert, Min H. Kao Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Tickle Coll...

Prof. Leon Tolbert Honored by SEC with 2020 Faculty Achievement Awardclose

Leon Tolbert, Min H. Kao Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Tickle College of Engineering, has been named winner of the 2020 SEC Faculty Achievement Award for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the SEC announced on April 15. Tolbert is a registered professional engineer in the state of Tennessee and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1991 and has worked on several projects there... read more

Volkswagen, UT, and ORNL Announce Partnership, Innovation Hubmore_vert

Volkswagen Group of America; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; the UT Research Foundation...

Volkswagen, UT, and ORNL Announce Partnership, Innovation Hubclose

Volkswagen Group of America; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; the UT Research Foundation; and Oak Ridge National Laboratory today announced a partnership to create Volkswagen’s first innovation hub in North America at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm. The partnership is leveraging the expertise of ORNL scientists and several faculty members within the Tickle College of Engineering at UT to develop lighter vehicle components made from composite materials and ... read more

GaN-Based Wireless Power Enables Efficient, Seamless Multi-Device Chargingmore_vert

For consumer mobile electronics, wireless power transfer (WPT) promises to revolutionize the way use...

GaN-Based Wireless Power Enables Efficient, Seamless Multi-Device Chargingclose

For consumer mobile electronics, wireless power transfer (WPT) promises to revolutionize the way users interact with their devices. Ubiquitous, seamless charging is expected to reduce onboard battery storage requirements, and untether mobile devices from periodic wired charging requirements.  At present, commercial implementations of wireless power transfer are largely limited to low power, low efficiency, and a charging paradigm where each device must be well aligned with a dedicated charg... read more

Big Orange Power: Spencer Cochran Working on Third Engineering Degreemore_vert

For Knoxville native Spencer Cochran, staying at UT for graduate school was a given.Cochran began hi...

Big Orange Power: Spencer Cochran Working on Third Engineering Degreeclose

For Knoxville native Spencer Cochran, staying at UT for graduate school was a given.Cochran began his journey at UT after graduating from Halls High School in 2011. During his undergraduate years, a few things pushed him toward an electrical engineering degree.“I always thought I wanted to work on robotic prosthetics,” Cochran said. “The longer I was in school, the more I began to feel like electrical engineering was just as appropriate, if not more appropriate, for that dream.... read more

ORNL announces big leap in wireless charging for electric vehiclesmore_vert

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced Thursday that it had successfully demonstrated a new 20-kilo...

ORNL announces big leap in wireless charging for electric vehiclesclose

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced Thursday that it had successfully demonstrated a new 20-kilowatt wireless charging system for electric vehicles.The lab said the charging system achieved 90 percent efficiency at three times the rate of the plug-in systems commonly used to recharge electric vehicles."This ability can help accelerate the adoption and convenience of electric vehicles," ORNL said in a release distributed to the news media.The Department of Energy laboratory collaborated on te... read more

DOE funding expands UT power electronics graduate programmore_vert

Cell phone and laptop chargers, electric cars, medical devices: improvement and development of these...

DOE funding expands UT power electronics graduate programclose

Cell phone and laptop chargers, electric cars, medical devices: improvement and development of these and other devices are all done by engineers in power electronics.A new $2.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy is helping the University of Tennessee encourage more students to go to graduate school in that discipline with a new graduate traineeship.UT faculty members are developing the courses and other details, as well as recruiting students for the program, which is expected to s... read more

EV Research Featured in Science Alliancemore_vert

Electric vehicles (EVs) have become fixtures in the car market, both in the U.S. and abroad, but the...

EV Research Featured in Science Allianceclose

Electric vehicles (EVs) have become fixtures in the car market, both in the U.S. and abroad, but there are hurdles to mass consumer adoption. In addition to continuing to be cost prohibitive to many, EV technology is still in need of advancements in efficiency, particularly at typical performance levels.As of December 2014, the United States possesses the largest fleet of plug-in electric vehicles in the world, with 291,332 highway capable plug-in electric cars sold since the launch of the Tesla... read more

DOE Visits PoTenntialmore_vert

Members of the US Department of Energy including Anant Agarwal, Senior Advisor for Wide Bandgap Tech...

DOE Visits PoTenntialclose

Members of the US Department of Energy including Anant Agarwal, Senior Advisor for Wide Bandgap Technology in the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy division visited the University of Tennessee Knoxville to review the newly-formed PoTenntial traineeship program on Friday.  Dr. Agarwal was accompanied by Pawel Gradzki, and Ziaur Rahman, of DOE; Al Hefner from NIST; Laura Marlino from ORNL; and Steve Walsh from Power America.This visit represented an "opening ceremonies" of sorts for th... read more

Latest News

Costinett Honored for Achievements in Power Electronics and Educationmore_vert

This June, Associate Professor Daniel Costinett was presented the 2022 Richard M. Bass Out...

Costinett Honored for Achievements in Power Electronics and Educationclose

This June, Associate Professor Daniel Costinett was presented the 2022 Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power Electronics Society. Awards from the IEEE are among the highest honors bestowed on technical engineers worldwide. Each year, the Richard M. Bass Award honors an early-career engineer who has made outstanding contributions to the field of power electronics. “I... read more

Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox Beta Releasedmore_vert

Today we're releasing a public beta of the Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox for MATLAB.  This...

Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox Beta Releasedclose

Today we're releasing a public beta of the Switched Mode Power Supply Toolbox for MATLAB.  This toolbox integrates our recent work in applying discrete time state space modeling to the steady-state analysis and design of power electronics.  The toolbox contains a a vsariety of functions and utilities that help speed up the process of analyzing, designing, and optimizing power converters.  The full source code is available (under MiT Open Source License) from the github repositoy, ... read more

Assistant/Associate Professor Position Availablemore_vert

The Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of...

Assistant/Associate Professor Position Availableclose

The Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) is seeking candidates for a tenure-track faculty position at the assistant or associate professor level in electrical engineering, in the area of power electronics, power systems, and related areas.  The successful candidate will be expected to develop and maintain sponsored research programs, supervise student research, teach at both the undergraduate and graduate... read more

Prof. Costinett Gives Power America Webinar on GaN-Based Wireless Power Transfermore_vert

PoTenntial Professor Daniel Costinett gave a Power America webinar on March 6th, 2019, covering the ...

Prof. Costinett Gives Power America Webinar on GaN-Based Wireless Power Transferclose

PoTenntial Professor Daniel Costinett gave a Power America webinar on March 6th, 2019, covering the fundamentals of wireless power transfer and ongoing research at the University of Tennessee employing GaN transistors in the design of conversion circuits, Abstract For consumer electronics, multi-load wireless power transfer (WPT) represents the ultimate transition away from wired technology; the commercialization of WPT technologies represents a paradigm shift comparable to the development of Wi... read more

Prof. Leon Tolbert Honored by SEC with 2020 Faculty Achievement Awardmore_vert

Leon Tolbert, Min H. Kao Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Tickle Coll...

Prof. Leon Tolbert Honored by SEC with 2020 Faculty Achievement Awardclose

Leon Tolbert, Min H. Kao Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Tickle College of Engineering, has been named winner of the 2020 SEC Faculty Achievement Award for the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the SEC announced on April 15. Tolbert is a registered professional engineer in the state of Tennessee and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1991 and has worked on several projects there... read more

Volkswagen, UT, and ORNL Announce Partnership, Innovation Hubmore_vert

Volkswagen Group of America; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; the UT Research Foundation...

Volkswagen, UT, and ORNL Announce Partnership, Innovation Hubclose

Volkswagen Group of America; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; the UT Research Foundation; and Oak Ridge National Laboratory today announced a partnership to create Volkswagen’s first innovation hub in North America at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm. The partnership is leveraging the expertise of ORNL scientists and several faculty members within the Tickle College of Engineering at UT to develop lighter vehicle components made from composite materials and ... read more

GaN-Based Wireless Power Enables Efficient, Seamless Multi-Device Chargingmore_vert

For consumer mobile electronics, wireless power transfer (WPT) promises to revolutionize the way use...

GaN-Based Wireless Power Enables Efficient, Seamless Multi-Device Chargingclose

For consumer mobile electronics, wireless power transfer (WPT) promises to revolutionize the way users interact with their devices. Ubiquitous, seamless charging is expected to reduce onboard battery storage requirements, and untether mobile devices from periodic wired charging requirements.  At present, commercial implementations of wireless power transfer are largely limited to low power, low efficiency, and a charging paradigm where each device must be well aligned with a dedicated charg... read more

Big Orange Power: Spencer Cochran Working on Third Engineering Degreemore_vert

For Knoxville native Spencer Cochran, staying at UT for graduate school was a given.Cochran began hi...

Big Orange Power: Spencer Cochran Working on Third Engineering Degreeclose

For Knoxville native Spencer Cochran, staying at UT for graduate school was a given.Cochran began his journey at UT after graduating from Halls High School in 2011. During his undergraduate years, a few things pushed him toward an electrical engineering degree.“I always thought I wanted to work on robotic prosthetics,” Cochran said. “The longer I was in school, the more I began to feel like electrical engineering was just as appropriate, if not more appropriate, for that dream.... read more

ORNL announces big leap in wireless charging for electric vehiclesmore_vert

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced Thursday that it had successfully demonstrated a new 20-kilo...

ORNL announces big leap in wireless charging for electric vehiclesclose

Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced Thursday that it had successfully demonstrated a new 20-kilowatt wireless charging system for electric vehicles.The lab said the charging system achieved 90 percent efficiency at three times the rate of the plug-in systems commonly used to recharge electric vehicles."This ability can help accelerate the adoption and convenience of electric vehicles," ORNL said in a release distributed to the news media.The Department of Energy laboratory collaborated on te... read more

DOE funding expands UT power electronics graduate programmore_vert

Cell phone and laptop chargers, electric cars, medical devices: improvement and development of these...

DOE funding expands UT power electronics graduate programclose

Cell phone and laptop chargers, electric cars, medical devices: improvement and development of these and other devices are all done by engineers in power electronics.A new $2.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy is helping the University of Tennessee encourage more students to go to graduate school in that discipline with a new graduate traineeship.UT faculty members are developing the courses and other details, as well as recruiting students for the program, which is expected to s... read more

EV Research Featured in Science Alliancemore_vert

Electric vehicles (EVs) have become fixtures in the car market, both in the U.S. and abroad, but the...

EV Research Featured in Science Allianceclose

Electric vehicles (EVs) have become fixtures in the car market, both in the U.S. and abroad, but there are hurdles to mass consumer adoption. In addition to continuing to be cost prohibitive to many, EV technology is still in need of advancements in efficiency, particularly at typical performance levels.As of December 2014, the United States possesses the largest fleet of plug-in electric vehicles in the world, with 291,332 highway capable plug-in electric cars sold since the launch of the Tesla... read more

DOE Visits PoTenntialmore_vert

Members of the US Department of Energy including Anant Agarwal, Senior Advisor for Wide Bandgap Tech...

DOE Visits PoTenntialclose

Members of the US Department of Energy including Anant Agarwal, Senior Advisor for Wide Bandgap Technology in the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy division visited the University of Tennessee Knoxville to review the newly-formed PoTenntial traineeship program on Friday.  Dr. Agarwal was accompanied by Pawel Gradzki, and Ziaur Rahman, of DOE; Al Hefner from NIST; Laura Marlino from ORNL; and Steve Walsh from Power America.This visit represented an "opening ceremonies" of sorts for th... read more

About the Traineeship

Potenntial is a design-oriented, hands-on graduate degree program at The University of Tennessee Knoxville, focusing on the use of wide bandgap semiconductors in power electronics. Traineeships are available for Masters or Doctoral-level studies. All students accepted into the program will receive a full waiver of tuition, and a $30,000 yearly stipend during their studies.

The traineeship is led by the The University of Tennessee Knoxville, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the NSF/DOE engineering research center CURENT, and is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy.

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