Ceramic-polymer composite for high energy density capacitors

The U.S. Department of Defense vision for future directed energy weapons systems (e.g., high power microwave systems) requires the development of electrical pulsers that exceed current state-of-the-art in energy storage density by an order of magnitude or more. Capacitors made from composite dielectric materials consisting of ceramic nanoparticles embedded in a polymer matrix show promise for attaining these goals. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and TPL Inc. (TPL) have teamed to investigate the limits of these new materials for use in high energy density and high power capacitor designs. The major challenges encountered thus far are quality control in the processing of the materials as well as mechanical stresses resulting from the thermal curing process while forming prototype capacitor devices. This paper reports on the current status and results achieved by this investigation.