High Energy Wound Capacitors Based on Flexible Oxide Films

Compact, high energy capacitors that can store > 5J/g are required for next generation pulse power devices. Increase in energy storage of capacitors enables reduction in size of the capacitor banks. The key to reducing the size of these systems is to develop capacitors with much higher energy density (5-10 J/cc) than polymer film capacitors based on biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP, 1 – 2 J/cc) and ceramic capacitors based on BaTiO3 (0.1 J/cc). Current metal oxide or electrolytic capacitors produced by anodization of the metal (eg Ta) using liquid electrolytes or low conductivity electrodes such as MnO2 are limited in their operation above 10 kHz making them unsuitable for advanced high frequency (>100 kHz up to 100 MHz) pulse discharge applications. In this Phase I, TRS proposes to develop high energy density, pulse discharge capacitors (> 10J/cc) using amorphous metal (Ta, Zr, Nb) oxide thin films on metallized flexible polymer substrates (such as mylar and kapton).