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

Award ID: 2016481

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 Gibbs 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.

NSF Program Director: Samir Iqbal