SBIR Phase I: Metamaterials for Giant Dielectrics and Energy Storage Solutions

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段研究项目探索了一种新的激光加工技术，以生产基于聚合物涂层金属纳米颗粒的纳米介电薄膜。这将使得在介电常数比主体聚合物高几个数量级的液体环境中使用激光照射目标材料来内部合成纳米介电薄膜。扩大这项技术的规模将导致制造体积和质量都较小的高能量密度电容器。脉冲激光烧蚀工艺已成功地用于在各种材料上制作用于黑体和热管理的微柱阵列。这种方法可以产生非常高的介电常数，这将增加介质的能量密度。该提案还涉及高温使用问题。更广泛的影响将是导致超高储能电容器的制造，这种电容器将用于尺寸和重量都很重要的商业和军事系统。这些设备应该允许存储单位体积的大量电荷(高能量密度)，这些电荷可以快速释放(高功率密度)。目前可用的商用超级电容器要么功率或能量密度太低，不能满足未来的电力存储需求，要么制造成本太高。这项技术将在电子和汽车工业的负载均衡、电源备份以及各种航空航天和军事系统中得到应用。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I research project explores a novel laser processing technique to produce nano-dielectric films which are based on polymer coated metal nanoparticles. This will enable in-house synthesis of nano-dielectrics films using laser irradiation of target materials in a liquid environment exhibiting a dielectric constant several orders of magnitude higher than that of the host polymer. Scaling up this technology will lead to fabrication of high energy density capacitors with both reduced size and mass. The pulsed laser ablation process has been successfully applied for fabrication of micro column arrays on various materials for blackbody and thermal management applications. The proposed method can lead to very high dielectric constants which would increase the energy density of the dielectric. The proposal also addresses high temperature use. The broader impact will be to lead to the fabrication of ultra high energy storage capacitors that will find use in commercial and military systems where size and weight are a premium. These devices should allow storage of a large amount of charge per unit volume (high energy density) that can be released rapidly (high power density). Commercial super-capacitors currently available have either too low power or energy density to meet future power storage needs or are too expensive to manufacture. This technology will find applications in load leveling, power back-up in electronics and automotive industry and various aerospace and military systems.