18 June 2013

ARPA-E issues two wide-bandgap funding opportunities

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) has announced two funding opportunities relating to solid-state lighting.

Both opportunities seek proposals for “transformational advances in wide-bandgap materials, device fabrication, and device architectures”, with the goal of enabling the development of high-voltage, high-current, single-die power semiconductor devices:

• Non-SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) Strategies for Wide-Bandgap, Inexpensive Transistors for Controlling High Efficiency Systems (SWITCHES) [DE-FOA-0000942] offers about $10m in total funds, with individual awards ranging from $250,000 to $10m. There are two separate categories of investigation: Proof of Concept Seedling Project (offering an average award of $500,000 and focusing on early-stage, proof-of-concept R&D efforts) and Technology Development Program (offering an average award of $3m and focusing on early-stage prototypes of various technology concepts for which some kind of initial proof-of-concept component demonstration already exists).

• SWITCHES SBIR (DE-FOA-0000941) is similar to the first opportunity but is aimed at small business. It offers about $15m in funding, with individual awards ranging from $225,000 to $3.255m.

Both opportunities require a Notice of Intent, due by 8 July, followed by a proposal due by 19 July.

ARPA-E’s mission is to identify and fund research to translate science into breakthrough energy technologies that are too risky for the privat e sector and that, if successfully developed, can create the foundation for entirely new industries.

See related items:

DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency issues $150m funding opportunity

Tags: Solid-state lighting LEDs

Visit: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov