News: Microelectronics
22 April 2026
TU Delft’s Karen Dowling receives NWO Open Competition ENW-XS grant
Dr Karen Dowling of the Microelectronics Department in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science at TU Delft (Delft Univrsity of Technology) has been awarded an NWO Open Competition ENW-XS grant for her research on materials that can be used in space exploration at extreme temperatures. Specifically, she will investigate the thermoelectric properties of gallium nitride by modelling, fabricating and testing it at temperatures ranging from 500K to 4K.
Dowling studies materials for use in space exploration under extreme temperature conditions. The average temperature in space is extremely low, only slightly above absolute zero (0 Kelvin). During space exploration at the edge of the solar system, heat is used to power instruments. However, thermoelectric materials are rare and inefficient in extreme cold (<50K), leading to energy loss and limiting missions. This is part of her bigger aim to merge (ultra)-wide-bandgap semiconductors with integrated circuits, where the name of her MUSIC Lab comes from.
Dowling will therefore focus on gallium nitride (GaN), which is well suited to space applications that performs better at low temperatures. So far, the thermoelectric properties of GaN below 50K have not been measured, and the coupling between positive and negative charge layers has not yet been explored. The project aims to improve the power factor of GaN by a factor of 1000 by modelling, fabricating and testing 2D layers at temperatures ranging from 500K to 4K.
