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

该创新合作伙伴关系 - 技术转化 (PFI-TT) 项目更广泛的影响/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；每部手机中都有超过 500 个电容器。电容器制造商需要改进、小型化并延长商用电容器的使用寿命，以改善商业应用。将与制造合作伙伴一起寻求满足这些需求的电容器的商业化。用于延长电池寿命的控制电路和能量存储的初始应用对于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使用的基础，从而产生巨大的市场。初步分析表明，这些电容器可以提供商业上无法获得的功能，并且成本比现有电容器更低。通过使用常用材料，该团队避免了当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可用性。这些电容器具有可扩展性，最终将广泛应用于从集成电路芯片到电力系统的各个领域。该合作伙伴关系包括关键制造工具的开发商和电容器制造商，后者将帮助指导制造和商业化工作。该项目将通过显着增加电极的表面积、绝缘层的介电常数以及非常薄的介电层的击穿电压来推进电容器能量存储。通过在小占地面积上制造定向纳米结构来最大化表面积。这些结构涂有高介电常数纳米层压薄膜，是电容器的电极，与现有电容器相比，可产生改进的电压操作和非常高的电容。纳米层压介电材料采用先进的原子层沉积技术进行堆叠，由于称为麦克斯韦-瓦格纳弛豫的过程，介电常数比单个材料的介电常数至少增加一个数量级。为纳米层压堆叠选择的材料具有类似的吉布斯形成自由能，这导致高击穿电压，从而导致低电流泄漏。这一优点是低电流泄漏将导致高能量密度电容器比商用电容器具有更小的占地面积和更高的击穿电压。该技术作为电子电路和小型储能技术（例如可穿戴设备、传感器和用于稳定电源的电池-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.