Advanced double layer capacitors

There is a need for large amounts of power to be delivered rapidly in a number of airborne and space systems. Conventional, portable power sources, such as batteries, are not suited to delivering high peak power pulses. The charge stored at the electrode-electrolyte double layer is, however, much more assessible on a short time scale. Devices exploiting this concept were fabricated using carbon and metal oxides (Pinnacle Research) as the electrodes and sulfuric acid as the electrolyte. The approach reported, replaces the liquid sulfuric acid electrolyte with a solid ionomer electrolyte. The challenge is to form a solid electrode-solid ionomer electrolyte composite which has a high capacitance per geometric area. The approach to maximize contact between the electrode particles and the ionomer was to impregnate the electrode particles using a liquid ionomer solution and to bond the solvent-free structure to a solid ionomer membrane. Ruthenium dioxide is the electrode material used. Three strategies are being pursued to provide for a high area electrode-ionomer contact: mixing of the RuOx with a small volume of ionomer solution followed by filtration to remove the solvent, and impregnation of the ionomer into an already formed RuOx electrode. RuOx powder and electrodes were examined by non-electrochemical techniques. X-ray diffraction has shown that the material is almost pure RuO2. The electrode structure depends on the processing technique used to introduce the Nafion. Impregnated electrodes have Nafion concentrated near the surface. Electrodes prepared by the evaporation method show large aggregates of crystals surrounded by Nafion

Design and simulation of zipping variable capacitors

Variable capacitors are essential for building tunable RF systems. We present here the design and simulation of novel zipping variable capacitors with a high permittivity dielectric layer. Two modelling techniques are presented: finite element simulation and variational analysis. A capacitance ratio greater than 40 can be obtained for a 100µm x 25µm device which has a high permittivity dielectric layer (εr = 200). By shaping either the top electrode beam or the bottom electrode, continuously variable capacitance is achieved at low bias voltages

Advanced double layer capacitors

Work was conducted that could lead to a high energy density electrochemical capacitor, completely free of liquid electrolyte. A three-dimensional RuO sub x-ionomer composite structure has been successfully formed and appears to provide an ionomer ionic linkage throughout the composite structure. Capacitance values of approximately 0.6 F/sq cm were obtained compared with 1 F/sq cm when a liquid electrolyte is used with the same configuration

Reliability Evaluation of Base-Metal-Electrode Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors for Potential Space Applications

Base-metal-electrode (BME) ceramic capacitors are being investigated for possible use in high-reliability spacelevel applications. This paper focuses on how BME capacitors construction and microstructure affects their lifetime and reliability. Examination of the construction and microstructure of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) BME capacitors reveals great variance in dielectric layer thickness, even among BME capacitors with the same rated voltage. Compared to PME (precious-metal-electrode) capacitors, BME capacitors exhibit a denser and more uniform microstructure, with an average grain size between 0.3 and 0.5 m, which is much less than that of most PME capacitors. BME capacitors can be fabricated with more internal electrode layers and thinner dielectric layers than PME capacitors because they have a fine-grained microstructure and do not shrink much during ceramic sintering. This makes it possible for BME capacitors to achieve a very high capacitance volumetric efficiency. The reliability of BME and PME capacitors was investigated using highly accelerated life testing (HALT). Most BME capacitors were found to fail with an early avalanche breakdown, followed by a regular dielectric wearout failure during the HALT test. When most of the early failures, characterized with avalanche breakdown, were removed, BME capacitors exhibited a minimum mean time-to-failure (MTTF) of more than 105 years at room temperature and rated voltage. Dielectric thickness was found to be a critical parameter for the reliability of BME capacitors. The number of stacked grains in a dielectric layer appears to play a significant role in determining BME capacitor reliability. Although dielectric layer thickness varies for a given rated voltage in BME capacitors, the number of stacked grains is relatively consistent, typically around 12 for a number of BME capacitors with a rated voltage of 25V. This may suggest that the number of grains per dielectric layer is more critical than the thickness itself for determining the rated voltage and the life expectancy of the BME capacitor. The leakage current characterization and the failure analysis results suggest that most of these early avalanche failures are due to the extrinsic minor construction defects introduced during fabrication of BME capacitors. The concentration of the extrinsic defects must be reduced if the BME capacitors are considered for high reliability applications. There are two approaches that can reduce or prevent the occurrence of early failure in BME capacitors: (1) to reduce the defect concentration with improved processing control; (2) to prevent the use of BME capacitors under harsh external stress levels so that the extrinsic defects will never be triggered for a failure. In order to do so appropriate dielectric layer thickness must be determined for a given rated voltage

Reliability Evaluation of Base-Metal-Electrode (BME) Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors for Space Applications

This paper reports reliability evaluation of BME ceramic capacitors for possible high reliability space-level applications. The study is focused on the construction and microstructure of BME capacitors and their impacts on the capacitor life reliability. First, the examinations of the construction and microstructure of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) BME capacitors show great variance in dielectric layer thickness, even among BME capacitors with the same rated voltage. Compared to PME (precious-metal-electrode) capacitors, BME capacitors exhibit a denser and more uniform microstructure, with an average grain size between 0.3 and approximately 0.5 micrometers, which is much less than that of most PME capacitors. The primary reasons that a BME capacitor can be fabricated with more internal electrode layers and less dielectric layer thickness is that it has a fine-grained microstructure and does not shrink much during ceramic sintering. This results in the BME capacitors a very high volumetric efficiency. The reliability of BME and PME capacitors was investigated using highly accelerated life testing (HALT) and regular life testing as per MIL-PRF-123. Most BME capacitors were found to fail with an early dielectric wearout, followed by a rapid wearout failure mode during the HALT test. When most of the early wearout failures were removed, BME capacitors exhibited a minimum mean time-to-failure of more than 10(exp 5) years. Dielectric thickness was found to be a critical parameter for the reliability of BME capacitors. The number of stacked grains in a dielectric layer appears to play a significant role in determining BME capacitor reliability. Although dielectric layer thickness varies for a given rated voltage in BME capacitors, the number of stacked grains is relatively consistent, typically between 10 and 20. This may suggest that the number of grains per dielectric layer is more critical than the thickness itself for determining the rated voltage and the life expectancy of the BME capacitor. Since BME capacitors have a much smaller grain size than PME capacitors, it is reasonable to predict that BME capacitors with thinner dielectric layers may have an equivalent life expectancy to that of PME capacitors with thicker dielectric layers

Failure Modes in Capacitors When Tested Under a Time-Varying Stress

Power-on failure has been the prevalent failure mechanism for solid tantalum capacitors in decoupling applications. A surge step stress test (SSST) has been previously applied to identify the critical stress level of a capacitor batch to give some predictability to the power-on failure mechanism [1]. But SSST can also be viewed as an electrically destructive test under a time-varying stress (voltage). It consists of rapidly charging the capacitor with incremental voltage increases, through a low resistance in series, until the capacitor under test is electrically shorted. When the reliability of capacitors is evaluated, a highly accelerated life test (HALT) is usually adopted since it is a time-efficient method of determining the failure mechanism; however, a destructive test under a time-varying stress such as SSST is even more time efficient. It usually takes days or weeks to complete a HALT test, but it only takes minutes for a time-varying stress test to produce failures. The advantage of incorporating a specific time-varying stress profile into a statistical model is significant in providing an alternative life test method for quickly revealing the failure mechanism in capacitors. In this paper, a time-varying stress that mimics a typical SSST has been incorporated into the Weibull model to characterize the failure mechanism in different types of capacitors. The SSST circuit and transient conditions for correctly surge testing capacitors are discussed. Finally, the SSST was applied for testing Ta capacitors, polymer aluminum capacitors (PA capacitors), and multi-layer ceramic (MLC) capacitors with both precious metal electrodes (PME) and base metal electrodes (BME). The test results are found to be directly associated with the dielectric layer breakdown in Ta and PA capacitors and are independent of the capacitor values, the way the capacitors were built, and the capacitors manufacturers. The test results also show that MLC capacitors exhibit surge breakdown voltages much higher than the rated voltage and that the breakdown field is inversely proportional to the dielectric layer thickness. The SSST data can also be used to comparatively evaluate the voltage robustness of capacitors for decoupling applications

Development of an 1100 deg F capacitor

The feasibility of developing a high temperature capacitor for 1100 F operation which is as small and light as conventional capacitors for normal operating temperatures is discussed. Pyrolyic boron nitride (PBN) was selected for the dielectric. The PBN capacitors were made by slicing and lapping material from thick blocks and then sputtering thin film electrodes. These capacitors had breakdown strengths of 7,000 volts per mil and a dissipation factor of less than 0.001 at 1100 F. Additional processing improvements were made after testing a multi-layer or stacked PBN capacitor for 1,000 hours at 1100 F. Sputter etching the wafers before depositing electrodes resulted in a reduction in dissipation factor. A sputtered boron nitride film applied to the outer electrode surfaces produced a more stable capacitor. A design for a 0.1 mu F capacitor and a summary of PBN wafer fabrication costs are given