Use of titanium nitride as an electrode in non-faradaic electrochemical cell
AssigneeGenia Technologies, Inc.
InventorsJohn Foster, Jason Komadina
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A nanopore cell includes a conductive layer. The nanopore cell further includes a titanium nitride (TiN) working electrode disposed above the conductive layer. The nanopore cell further includes insulating walls disposed above the TiN working electrode, wherein the insulating walls and the TiN working electrode form a well into which an electrolyte may be contained. In some embodiments, the TiN working electrode comprises a spongy and porous TiN working electrode that is deposited by a deposition technique with conditions tuned to deposit sparsely-spaced TiN columnar structures or columns of TiN crystals above the conductive layer.
Claims18
A nanopore cell, comprising:
- a conductive layer;
- a titanium nitride (TiN) working electrode disposed above the conductive layer;
- and
- insulating walls disposed above the TiN working electrode, wherein the insulating walls and the TiN working electrode form a well into which an electrolyte may be contained, wherein the TiN working electrode forms a base of the well and wherein the insulating walls form surrounding walls of the well, and wherein the surrounding walls extend from the base of the well, wherein a portion of the insulating walls covers a portion of the TiN working electrode, and wherein the well has an opening above an uncovered portion of the TiN working electrode, and wherein a base surface area of the TiN working electrode is greater than a base surface area of the opening above the uncovered portion of the TiN working electrode.
A method of constructing a nanopore cell, comprising:
- depositing a first dielectric layer over a conductive layer;
- removing a portion of the first dielectric layer to form an opening over the conductive layer;
- depositing a layer of titanium nitride (TiN) in the opening over the conductive layer to form a TiN electrode;
- depositing a second dielectric layer over both the TiN electrode and the first dielectric layer;
- and
- removing a portion of the second dielectric layer to expose a portion of the TiN electrode and to form a well.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.