The electronic design work led to an offer in 2000 to join the power electronics and electric machinery group at ORNL as a research and development associate, where he later became a technical professional and remains today.  For several years, he served as a project manager and principal investigator for characterizing prototype capacitors and magnets for hybrid electric vehicle drive systems.

Adapting to new technologies

Seiber arrived at ORNL at a time when the U.S. was just beginning to focus on clean and sustainable transportation and investigating how to develop affordable, emissions-free cars and light trucks. His ability to test and build electronic devices proved invaluable to the lab’s participation in DOE’s FreedomCAR program that was launched in 2002 with the goal to transition to advanced hybrid electric vehicles by 2015.

“I developed a program to characterize prototype capacitors and magnets that would need to be used in a hybrid electric vehicle-electric drive system,” Seiber said. “This was new work for us. Had never been done. We had to make sure the capacitors could withstand extreme temperatures, too, so I developed the first testing procedure for that.”

Capacitors are needed for hybrid electric vehicles to run efficiently when switching to a battery source. The electronic devices can store energy so that it can be quickly accessed to keep batteries operating within safe limits and extend their lifespan. Magnets, likewise, are a critical component for the electric motor, enabling power delivery from the battery to the wheels by generating the rotational force. 

Seiber’s procedure for keeping capacitors cool earned him his first team patent and set the stage for an even bigger challenge – building the hardware for wireless power transfer systems. At first, when he was asked to build the components in such a way that they were as lightweight as possible, he wasn’t sure of the purpose.

“I was working on a different project, testing capacitors and magnets where we were evaluating the method of cooling a capacitor in liquid freon,” he said. “Around that same time, the research team was doing a wireless power transfer using light bulbs, over a small gap of a few inches. I thought to myself, well, that’s all well and good but what are we going to use this for?”

Seiber soon found out; he was tasked with building the inverter that would generate the high-frequency signal that a receiver could then pick up and use to receive power without wires. Using sketches and renderings from 3D-printed computer automated design files, Seiber painstakingly built it step by step, by hand.

“To build an inverter, there’s cooling to consider, there’s heat sinks that need to be looked at. And the supporting hardware and drive cards must be added, being mindful of methods to avoid electromagnetic interference,” he explained. “Putting that package together cannot be rushed. I take time to look at each detail and think about what could happen, such as high-voltage arcing unless I insulate or isolate something. 

“So far, every inverter system that I’ve built has worked the first time with no errors. That’s something that I’m proud of,” he said.

Seiber’s inverters helped achieve the first 20-kW transferred to a sport utility vehicle in 2016. This success was followed by the benchtop lab testing of a 120-kW charge using conventional coil technology and a 20-kilowatt bi-directional wireless charging system installed on a UPS medium-duty, plug-in hybrid electric delivery truck in 2020. Seiber’s work with the internal components also enabled a 100-kW transfer to a light-duty passenger vehicle in early 2024.

This Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article "Fifty years of impact: Larry Seiber builds, tests components that power wireless charging breakthroughs" was originally found on https://www.ornl.gov/news