NanoEngineered Tunable Dielectric Materials for High Frequency Applications

The development of electronic devices that are robust, highly efficient, compact, and powerful with wide operational frequency range is critical for enabling precision effects and full battlespace awareness for the U.S. Air Force.  High performance tunable dielectric materials are needed with high dielectric permittivity, low dielectric loss, high dielectric strength, and large nonlinear response to electric field.  However, existing dielectric materials cannot meet these requirements completely.  nGimat Co. proposes to develop novel nanostructured multilayered dielectric materials for high frequency microwave applications.  nGimats proprietary Combustion Chemical Vapor Deposition (CCVD) technique will be utilized to produce the proposed dielectric materials with controlled layer thickness and stacking periods and with improved electrical properties over existing dielectric materials.  Therefore, the proposed material systems will enable a significant overall improvement in future electronic components and systems enabling new military and commercial capabilities. BENEFIT: In recent years, stimulated by the explosive growth in the electronics and telecommunications industries, there is an increasing need for high performance dielectric materials that operate at higher frequencies while reducing size and cost, and increasing performance by integrating multiple separate components into a single device.  The proposed dielectric materials systems have wide applications in both the military and industrial areas, including phased array antennas, tunable filters, and phase shifters.  The military will benefit from this dual use technology, which will enable low costs for the proposed high performance dielectric materials.  The success in this work will enable the U.S. to maintain leadership in the global competition for this technology.  Capturing even a tiny percentage of the predicted market represents a significant opportunity for nGimat.