Metacapacitors: Printed Thin Film, Flexible Capacitors for Power Conversion Applications

摘要

The Metacapacitors project aims to improve efficiency, functionality and form factor of offline power converters suitable for LED solid-state lighting, with a view to developing an attractive technology platform for load management and power conversion across a broad range of applications. Based on integrated switched-capacitor (SC) topologies, the project adopts an integrated approach from materials to devices to circuits. We designed capacitors based on high- dielectric nanocrystals, that can be prepared using high-throughput microfabricationanotechnology techniques, ink deposition and multilayering. The capacitor dielectric, a nanocomposite composed of (Ba, Sr)TiO nanocrystals in polyfurfuryl alcohol (BST/PFA, , –, loss , ), targets a high volumetric capacitance density and ripple current capability. The Dielectric is demonstrated to function in a finished capacitor at . The capacitors were board integrated with a custom hybrid-switched-capacitor-resonant dc–dc converter IC. The converter integrates a balanced SC front-end with a series resonant tank, enabling nearly lossless current regulation and tranformerless galvanic isolation. The converter IC can be stacked in the voltage domain to interface a range of inputs. The tested driver delivers about at to a string of LEDs with peak efficiency.