High energy density and low leakage electronic devices

#In order to produce a capacitor or electronic device with a Giant or very high capacitance, an insulator with a very high dielectric constant must be fabricated. In one exemplary device, a very high dielectric constant of ∈=107 was produced by embedding metal atoms (e.g., gold) in an insulator. The insulator was placed between two nanometer (nm) wide and micrometer (μm) long metal plates as electrodes. In another similar exemplary device, a very high dielectric constant of ∈=1010 was produced by embedding metal strings in a porous insulator placed between two electrodes. Although these devices are capable of producing a high dielectric constant, it has not been shown for either device that the energy storage density can be increased as the dielectric thickness is reduced below 50 μm. Further, neither of these devices has yet produced a very high capacitance.

#The skilled artisan will understand that the drawings, described below, are for illustration purposes only. The drawings are not intended to limit the scope of the present teachings in any way.

#FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a plot of the effective charge profile superimposed on the insulator portion of a capacitor produced by a periodic magnetic field applied perpendicular to the electrodes of the capacitor, in accordance with various embodiments.

#FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an electronic device that includes two magnetized layers between two electrode layers that apply a magnetic field to an insulator layer that is perpendicular to the electrode layers, in accordance with various embodiments.

#Before one or more embodiments of the present teachings are described in detail, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the present teachings are not limited in their application to the details of construction, the arrangements of components, and the arrangement of steps set forth in the following detailed description or illustrated in the drawings. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology used herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

#As described above, conventional capacitors with a very high dielectric constant, ∈, between 107 and 1010, have been produced by embedding metal atoms or metal strings in an insulator placed between two electrodes. The dielectric thickness, d, of these conventional capacitors is reported to be about 50 micrometers (μm) or larger.

#In order to determine how scalable these conventional capacitors are, a relationship between the static dielectric constant, ∈s, and d, is developed for a constant energy storage density. The energy stored in a flat-plate capacitor is given by