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Giant energy storage and power density negative capacitance superlattices.

Suraj S CheemaNirmaan ShankerShang-Lin HsuJoseph SchaadtNathan M EllisMatthew CookRavi RastogiRobert C N Pilawa-PodgurskiJim CistonMohamed MohamedSayeef Salahuddin
Published in: Nature (2024)
Dielectric electrostatic capacitors 1 , because of their ultrafast charge-discharge, are desirable for high-power energy storage applications. Along with ultrafast operation, on-chip integration can enable miniaturized energy storage devices for emerging autonomous microelectronics and microsystems 2-5 . Moreover, state-of-the-art miniaturized electrochemical energy storage systems-microsupercapacitors and microbatteries-currently face safety, packaging, materials and microfabrication challenges preventing on-chip technological readiness 2,3,6 , leaving an opportunity for electrostatic microcapacitors. Here we report record-high electrostatic energy storage density (ESD) and power density, to our knowledge, in HfO 2 -ZrO 2 -based thin film microcapacitors integrated into silicon, through a three-pronged approach. First, to increase intrinsic energy storage, atomic-layer-deposited antiferroelectric HfO 2 -ZrO 2 films are engineered near a field-driven ferroelectric phase transition to exhibit amplified charge storage by the negative capacitance effect 7-12 , which enhances volumetric ESD beyond the best-known back-end-of-the-line-compatible dielectrics (115 J cm -3 ) (ref.  13 ). Second, to increase total energy storage, antiferroelectric superlattice engineering 14 scales the energy storage performance beyond the conventional thickness limitations of HfO 2 -ZrO 2 -based (anti)ferroelectricity 15 (100-nm regime). Third, to increase the storage per footprint, the superlattices are conformally integrated into three-dimensional capacitors, which boosts the areal ESD nine times and the areal power density 170 times that of the best-known electrostatic capacitors: 80 mJ cm -2 and 300 kW cm -2 , respectively. This simultaneous demonstration of ultrahigh energy density and power density overcomes the traditional capacity-speed trade-off across the electrostatic-electrochemical energy storage hierarchy 1,16 . Furthermore, the integration of ultrahigh-density and ultrafast-charging thin films within a back-end-of-the-line-compatible process enables monolithic integration of on-chip microcapacitors 5 , which can unlock substantial energy storage and power delivery performance for electronic microsystems 17-19 .
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