Capacitance of Rough Surfaces

Miniature electrodes are in growing demand for applications such as medical sensing and alternative energy technologies. The potential for increasing the capacitance of such electrodes by roughening the surface was investigated, which may allow for further miniaturization. Although roughening the surface did increase the capacitance, nanometer-scale roughness seems to reduce the capacitor ideality. This indicates that the roughening techniques should increase micron-scale roughness while minimizing nanometer-scale roughness. Electrodeposition of gold nanoparticles was found to achieve this goal