Influence of electromigration on the maximum operating field of (Ba,Sr)TiO3/parylene-C composite capacitors

Abstract

Nanoparticle/polymer composite capacitors are a promising approach for fabricating high performance capacitors at low temperatures using printing techniques. In this work, the dependence of the operating voltage of nanoparticle/polymer composite capacitors on the electromigration parameter of the electrodes is investigated. The authors have previously shown that breakdown is suppressed by selecting the polarity used in nanoparticle (Ba,Sr)TiO3/parylene-C composite film-based capacitors. In this work, the authors examine gold, silver, copper, chromium, and aluminum electrodes with comparable surface conditions. The asymmetric silver, aluminum, gold, copper, and chromium electrode devices show a 64%, 29%, 28%, 17%, 33%, improvement in the effective maximum operating field, respectively, when comparing bias polarity. The field at which filament formation is observed shows a clear dependence on the electromigration properties of the electrode material, and demonstrates that use of electromigration resistant metal electrodes offers an additional route to improving the performance of capacitors using this nanoparticle/polymer composite architecture.