Talk by Dr Jen Walls on silicon carbide materials powering the electric future, part of the Curious Minds series.
Dr Jen Walls is coming to the AK Bell Library on Friday 15 January 2027, for a talk titled Beyond Silicon: The new materials powering our electric future. It's part of the Curious Minds series, which is run by Culture Perth & Kinross and the Perthshire Society of Natural Science — one of the oldest scientific societies in Scotland.
Walls is the CEO of a semiconductor company that specialises in silicon carbide power transistors. If that sounds like a mouthful, here's the gist: silicon carbide handles much higher currents, voltages and temperatures than the conventional silicon we've relied on for decades. Because of that, it's now the preferred choice for automotive, solar, wind and aviation applications — the kind of things that actually move the needle on the electric transition. She'll be talking about how that works and why it matters.
She's also going to tie it back to Scotland's own history. She'll draw on the legacy of 'Silicon Glen' to explain how that era spawned a cluster of successful advanced materials companies right here. It's a good way to see how a global shift in technology connects to something local.
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Curious Minds is themed around 'Contemporary Science in Scotland', and the series has covered a fair bit of ground so far: dinosaur fossils in Skye, the human genome, black holes, gravitational waves and the science of consciousness. This one fits right in. The talk starts at 19:30 and runs for about 90 minutes, with tickets at £4.50 for PSNS members and £8.00 for non-members. You'll find the AK Bell Library on York Place, PH2 8EP.
