Abstract
In this work, the entire manufacturing process of electrostatic supercapacitors using the atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique combined with the employment of nanoporous anodic alumina templates as starting substrates is reported. The structure of a usual electrostatic capacitor, which comprises a top conductor electrode/the insulating dielectric layer/and bottom conductor electrode (C/D/C), has been reduced to nanoscale size by depositing layer by layer the required materials over patterned nanoporous anodic alumina membranes (NAAMs) by employing the ALD technique. A thin layer of aluminum-doped zinc oxide, with 3 nm in thickness, is used as both the top and bottom electrodes’ material. Two dielectric materials were tested; on the one hand, a triple-layer made by a successive combination of 3 nm each layers of silicon dioxide/titanium dioxide/silicon dioxide and on the other hand, a simple layer of alumina, both with 9 nm in total thickness. The electrical properties of these capacitors are studied, such as the impedance and capacitance dependences on the AC frequency regime (up to 10 MHz) or capacitance (180 nF/cm2) on the DC regime. High breakdown voltage values of 60 V along with low leakage currents (0.4 μA/cm2) are also measured from DC charge/discharge RC circuits to determine the main features of the capacitors behavior integrated in a real circuit.
Highlights
Society is increasingly aware of the usage of sustainable energy sources that protect the environment, such as renewable energy resources, whose viability is demonstrated
This work has faced the development of electrostatic capacitors and its enhanced possibilities by using nanomaterials, in this way covering the full manufacturing and characterization process of these energy storage devices
An experimental procedure has been followed for the complete characterization of these devices, consisting of three phases, from which the intrinsic magnitudes that completely characterize a capacitor can be measured, such as internal resistance, leakage resistance, capacitance, and breakdown voltage
Summary
Society is increasingly aware of the usage of sustainable energy sources that protect the environment, such as renewable energy resources, whose viability is demonstrated. The goal of ALD employment is to reduce the thickness of the dielectric material (d) to the order of nanometers, which results in a consequent increase of capacitance (see Equation (1)) This technique allows one to make coatings of oxide materials over porous substrates, achieving the deposition of layers with thicknesses in the range of nanometers on the internal surface of the nanopores [11,12]. The electrical behavior of this new multilayered capacitor is compared with the performance of a single layer capacitor, which is conformed by Al2 O3 as the dielectric layer This last dielectric is a material whose ALD deposition has been widely characterized [4,5,6,11,14,24,25], and which exhibits an intermediate permittivity and band gap values with respect to TiO2 and SiO2. This demonstrated the ability of using nanostructured materials for designing energy storage supercapacitor devices
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