SBIR Phase II:Metamaterials for Giant Dielectrics and Energy Storage Solutions

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to develop a core-shell nanoparticle architecture with metal nanoparticles as the high capacitance core, and polymers as the shell. The nanoparticles will be entrained in a broad spectrum of host polymers via a novel approach to produce high dielectric-constant films with minimum dielectric loss. To scale up this process without losing the unique and valuable properties of core-shell nanoparticles, a wet chemistry route with laser for selective polymerization will be utilized to coat each metal nanoparticle with a polymeric shell. The broader/commercial impact of this project will be the potential to provide high-dielectric constant nanoparticles for the development of nanocomposite to meet future energy storage needs of supercapacitors. Currently, commercially available supercapacitors either have too low power or energy density or are too expensive to manufacture. This project is expected to enable the fabrication of ultra high energy storage capacitors by providing high energy and power density in a cost-effective manner.