PFI-TT: Next Generation High Energy Storage, Light Weight Capacitors

这一创新技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是将基于纳米工程和高性能材料的下一代电容器商业化。电容器是电子电路中无处不在的元件，每部手机中有500多个电容器。电容器制造商需要改进、小型化和延长商用电容器的使用寿命，以改善商业应用。与制造合作伙伴合作，将寻求满足这些需求的电容器的商业化。在控制电路和能量存储方面的初步应用以延长电池寿命对最终用户工业合作伙伴至关重要。商业应用中的操作和制造工艺证明将成为扩大电容器在整个电子行业的使用的基础，产生一个巨大的市场。初步分析表明，这些电容器可能提供商业上无法获得的功能，而且成本低于目前的电容器。通过使用普遍可用的材料，该团队避免了目前商业产品中的稀有元素及其对环境的重大影响和不确定的供应。这些电容器是可扩展的，最终将被广泛使用，从集成电路芯片到电力系统。合作伙伴包括一名关键制造工具的开发商和一名电容器制造商，后者将帮助指导制造和商业化努力。该项目将通过显著增加电极的表面积、绝缘层的介电常数和具有非常薄的介质层的击穿电压来提高电容器的储能能力。通过在较小的占地面积上制备定向纳米结构来最大化表面积。这些结构覆盖了一层高介电常数纳米薄层，是电容器的电极，与目前的电容器相比，产生了更好的电压操作和非常高的电容。纳米层状介质材料使用先进的原子层沉积技术进行堆叠，由于一种称为麦克斯韦-瓦格纳弛豫的过程，介电常数比单独材料的介电常数增加至少一个数量级。为纳米层叠层选择的材料具有类似的吉布斯自由生成能，这导致高击穿电压，从而导致低电流泄漏。这一优势是低漏电流将导致高能量密度电容器，其占地面积更小，击穿电压更高，而不是商业上可用的电容器。这项技术作为电子电路和小规模储能技术(如可穿戴设备、传感器和用于功率稳定的电池-电容器混合体)的组件，有可能对消费电子市场产生重大影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to commercialize the next generation of capacitors based on nanoengineering and high performance materials. Capacitors are ubiquitous components of electronic circuits; There are over 500 capacitors in every cell phone. Capacitor manufacturers need to improve, miniaturize, and extend the lifetime of commercial capacitors in order to improve commercial applications. With a manufacturing partner, commercialization of the capacitors that meet these needs will be sought. Initial applications in control circuits and energy storage for extending battery lifetimes are critical to the end-user industrial partners. Proof of operation and manufacturing processes in their commercial applications will serve as a base to expand the use of the capacitors across the electronics industry, generating a large market. Initial analysis indicates that the capacitors may provide functionality not commercially available and at lower cost than present capacitors. By using commonly available materials, the team avoids the rare elements in present commercial products and their significant environmental impacts and uncertain availability. The capacitors are scalable and ultimately will be used widely from integrated circuit chips to power systems. The partnership includes a developer of the critical manufacturing tool, and a capacitor manufacturer who will help guide the manufacturing and commercialization efforts. The proposed project will advance capacitor energy storage by significantly increasing the surface area of the electrodes, the dielectric constant of the insulating layer, and the breakdown voltage with a very thin dielectric layer. The surface area is maximized by fabricating oriented nanostructures on a small footprint area. These structures, coated with a thin film of high dielectric constant nanolaminates, are the capacitors’ electrodes, and produce improved voltage operations and very high capacitance compared to the present capacitors. The nanolaminate dielectric materials are stacked using an advanced atomic layer deposition technique such that the dielectric constant increases by at least an order of magnitude over that of the individual materials due to a process called Maxwell-Wagner relaxation. The materials chosen for the nanolaminate stack have similar Gibb’s free energy of formation which leads to a high breakdown voltage and consequently a low current leakage. This advantage is low current leakage will result in high energy density capacitors that have smaller footprints and higher breakdown voltage than commercially available ones. This technology has the potential to significantly impact consumer electronics market as a component in electronic circuits and small scale energy storage technologies such as wearable devices, sensors, and battery-capacitor hybrids for power stabilization.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.