A SiC MOSFET based inverter for wireless power transfer applications

In a wireless power transfer (WPT) system, efficiency of the power conversion stages is crucial so that the WPT technology can compete with the conventional conductive charging systems. Since there are 5 or 6 power conversion stages, each stage needs to be as efficient as possible. SiC inverters are crucial in this case; they can handle high frequency operation and they can operate at relatively higher temperatures resulting in reduces cost and size for the cooling components. This study presents the detailed power module design, development, and fabrication of a SiC inverter. The proposed inverter has been tested at three center frequencies that are considered for the WPT standardization. Performance of the inverter at the same target power transfer level is analyzed along with the other system components. In addition, another SiC inverter has been built in authors' laboratory by using the ORNL designed and developed SiC modules. It is shown that the inverter with ORNL packaged SiC modules performs better than the inverter having commercially available SiC modules.