The era of modern power electronics began in the late 1950s when the siliconcontrolled rectifier (SCR) was developed by General Electric Corporation. Most of the early applications of SCRs involved electric drives. In recent decades, power
electronic converters spread to the electric grid, distributed generation systems, renewable energy sources, transportation, and a variety of industrial processes. Todays power electronics is sustaining a robust growth.

This book is intended as a reference for professionals who are already familiar with the fundamentals of power electronics. Consequently, in contrast to typical textbooks, no coverage of basic principles of electric power conditioning is provided.
It is assumed that Readers do not need explanation of such terms as the rectifier, inverter, chopper, or pulse width modulation.

The content of the book is mostly focused on recent advances in power electronic converters and systems, but the technological progress in the area of the associated semiconductor devices cannot be overlooked. The traditional siliconbased semiconductor power switches, such as thyristors or IGBTs, are reaching limits of their highly impressive operating parameters and characteristics. However, a new era of the so-called wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor devices
has already begun, promising revolutionary enhancement of the existing power electronic circuits. The most advanced WBG technology is that of silicon carbide devices, which are described in details in Chapter 1.