High Speed and High Voltage Capacitors for Naval HPRF Directed Energy Applications

Ballistic Devices is developing a capacitor that utilizes Cubic Zirconia, a single crystal high-K dielectric material. The single crystal design approach is expected to enable orders of magnitude improvement in energy density over conventional ceramic capacitor designs. It is expected that these components will be able to operate at near the theoretical dielectric breakdown field strength and enable a new class of dielectric capacitors. The proposed components are expected to have an energy density of 0.5 J/cm3, a capacitance of 5nF, 117 nF, and 154 nF, and be able to operate at 80,000V, 16KV and 8KV respectively. The proposed capacitors will handle pulsed currents in excess of 1000A for tens of nanoseconds all while being cycled at 1 MHz. These components will hold to a C0G temperature specification, and is expected to behave linearly over the operating voltage range. These new components will enable a plethora of new pulsed power applications by reducing size, and weight, and by increasing power density over conventional designs.