Q&A: Switching Technology Improves Power Grid Efficiency

摘要

Kristin Sampayan, CEO of Opcondys, Inc., is guiding the commercialization of low-loss, highspeed, high-voltage switching technology developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.Tech Briefs: Tell us about the origins of this technology.Kristin Sampayan: Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were looking for a fast way to switch high voltage. They found that when certain wide bandgap materials were hit with light, they became conductive but when the light went away, the conductivity dropped. They patented the invention - the Optical Trans-conductance Varistor (OTV) - but since they don't commercialize technology, we licensed it and formed Opcondys to bring it to market.