N-supercap has investigated the fundamental effects contributing to energy storage enhancement in on-chip ferroelectric electrostatic supercapacitors with doped high-k dielectrics and achieved a capacitor stack where such energy enhancement was fully experimentally validated.
As an example of embodiment, by optimizing energy storage density and efficiency in nanometer-thin stacks of Si:HfO2 and Al2O3, we have achieved energy storage density of 90 J/cm3 with efficiencies up to 90%, which can be further improved. Importantly, we demonstrated for the first time that in such ferroelectric stacks, both negative capacitance and dipole switching contribute to energy density enhancement, with an enhancement of more than 30% when the negative capacitance regime is exploited. Such non-linear supercapacitors are fully compatible with semiconductor industrial processing and be integrated on the backside of any electronic chip, providing an interesting solution for on-chip energy storage and connectivity to a buried power line.
These type of non-linear ferroelectric supercapacitors have clear applications in powering future low power Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensing nodes, with power consumption less than milliWatts. We have performed a market study and elaborated a business plan (as part of a potential investor package) to define a path for the future exploitation of this technology in environmental monitoring with IoT nodes, in scenarios that combine such energy storage elements with energy harvesting and power management schemes specific to IoT nodes.
