Space Travel, Heavy Ions, Electric Cars ft. Dimosthenis Katsis

In this episode

• How a consortium of companies shares research on silicon carbide and gallium nitride electronics for electric cars, chargers and aircraft
• Why hybrid electric aircraft can fly with a turbine the size of a watermelon
• How racing the slowest solar car in a coast-to-coast competition at Virginia Tech started Dimos’s career in power electronics
• Why material science, down to the polymer poured over a battery pack, is what makes electric vehicles safe
• Testing electronics for Blue Origin by firing heavy ions at them to mimic space weather, and his quirkiest project: tritium-powered batteries designed to last 20 years
• His wishes: forward-thinking funding for the places hit hardest by climate change, and a better relationship between scientists and everyone else

Key Takeaways

• Director of Power Electronics at PowerAmerica, an ~89-member US/Europe/Asia consortium sharing wide-bandgap semiconductor (SiC, GaN) technology for electrification of transport, aerospace and medicine.
• Material science is what makes power electronics commercially viable, encapsulants that prevent arcing, corona and dendrite bridges in 800 V EV battery packs matter as much as the chips.
• Compact/mobile accelerator and wide-bandgap tech could move capabilities (cancer therapy, sensing) to places that can’t currently afford or import them.
• Career: Virginia Tech solar-car team, GE, PhD, Blue Origin (space-radiation testing; lunar-rock solar cells), consulting on hybrid-electric aircraft.
• Three wishes: fund basic research with forward/long-term thinking that also directs climate and technology money to the people least able to afford the fixes; rebuild scientist–public trust.

Listen on

About the guest

Dimosthenis Katsis is Director of Power Electronics at PowerAmerica, developing electric vehicle technology using wide bandgap power semiconductors. His career has run from solar car racing to hybrid army vehicles, nuclear energy consulting and rocket building, and back to electric vehicles.

Dimosthenis Katsis curated the Real Scientists Nano Twitter account (@RealSci_Nano) from October 9 to October 12 2023. Read all of Dimosthenis’s tweets from that week.