Band-Gap Engineered Varistors

Solid-state electronic devices are often subjected to high voltage transients generated by switching, lightning, or electrostatic discharge. These transients can cause mission critical components to fail. Varistors are increasingly used to avoid such failures. The current varistor devices, however, are not well suited for high frequency applications and the increasing trend towards device miniaturization. This program seeks to direct efforts to remedy this. Our technical approach is to synthesize and fabricate varistors from titanates whose grains and grain boundaries have been band-gap engineered at nanometer scale ( 10-7 to 10-9 m). It is anticipated that the proposed varistors will be orders of magnitude smaller, lighter, and yet perform significantly better than conventional varistors. During Phase I, ADI will establish the proof-of-concept. Phase II effort will seek to optimize the device and its fabrication, and field test prototype varistors. Phase III will commercialize the technology.