Groundbreaking Microcapacitors Could Power Chips of the Future
Scientists developed microcapacitors with ultrahigh energy and power density, paving the way for on-chip energy storage in electronic devicesIn the ongoing quest to make electronic devices ever smaller and more energy efficient, researchers want to bring energy storage directly onto microchips, reducing the losses incurred when power is transported between various device components.
This research is part of broader efforts at Berkeley Lab to develop new materials and techniques for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient microelectronics. Here, the researchers achieved their record-breaking microcapacitors by carefully engineering thin films of HfO2-ZrO2 to achieve a negative capacitance effect. Normally, layering one dielectric material on top of another results in an overall lower capacitance. However, if one of those layers is a negative-capacitance material, then the overall capacitance actually increases.
To scale up the energy storage capability of the films, the team needed to increase the film thickness without allowing it to relax out of the frustrated antiferroelectric-ferroelectric state. They found that by interspersing atomically thin layers of aluminum oxide after every few layers of HfO2-ZrO2, they could grow the films up to 100 nm thick while still retaining the desired properties.
“The energy and power density we got are much higher than we expected,” said Salahuddin. “We’ve been developing negative capacitance materials for many years, but these results were quite surprising.”
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