Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “dielectric accelerator”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Pulse duration dependent effects of ultrafast laser induced damage on a 1030 nm multi-layer dielectric mirror for high repetition rate, high average power laser systems

High repetition rate, high peak, and average power laser systems are crucial for next-generation particle accelerators, inertial confinement fusion, and secondary particle sources. These applications demand durable laser optics, particularly interference coatings on optics lasting millions of shots at high fluence. This study focuses on designing, testing, and simulating multi-layer dielectric (MLD) mirrors for pulse durations of 260 fs, 77 fs, and 25 fs at 1030 nm wavelength and 45-degree incidence angle with p -polarization. S-on-1 laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDT) for varying pulse numbers were determined, with single-shot LIDT values of 0.98 Jcm -2 , 1.63 Jcm -2 , and 2.3 Jcm -2 for 25 fs, 77 fs, and 260 fs respectively. A strong correlation between blister shape and local fluence was observed, implying that the layer expansion in a blister depends on local fluence. We have also examined mechanisms responsible for laser-induced stress generation and energy release rates in blister formation. Damage mechanisms are further explored by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, incorporating Keldysh strong field ionization, whose predictions were in excellent agreement with the onset of damage determined experimentally. These findings offer insights for enhancing MLD coating technology, promising more efficient and resilient laser systems for diverse scientific and industrial applications.

Noor, Mohamed Yaseen (ORCID:000000021036644X)↗
DOE OSTI2024

High performance Calcium Copper Titanate/Polyimide dielectrics composites enabled through colloidal stabilization

Transition to electrified transportation demands advanced power electronic components with the capability to improve range, reliability, and cost of ownership to accelerate mass market adoption. Thus, improvement in the current designs, manufacturing processes, materials, and components capable of providing reliable and efficient operation at higher temperatures play important roles in meeting future needs. To address these challenges, this article focuses on novel dielectric materials designed to reduce the volume of the most important and bulky component of a power electronic system, a capacitor. A new composite dielectric material was developed by integrating the positive attributes of both polymer and ceramic capacitors to overcome the challenges of state-of-the-art dielectric materials. Further, the developed composite properties have been evaluated and showed promising results, achieving a dielectric constant of 250 at 100 Hz, 25°C, unseen in current literature. Additionally, these materials can function at high temperatures (>150°C) with good breakdown strength, providing promising working conditions for capacitors, especially in electric vehicle applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Erosion of focus rings in capacitively coupled plasma etching reactors

In plasma etching reactors, the structure surrounding the wafer, often called a focus ring (FR), plays an important role in maintaining uniform fluxes of reactants across the wafer. The FR is typically made of dielectric materials. During the plasma etching process, the sheath that forms over the wafer to accelerate ions anisotropically into the surface extends over the FR. Electrical charging of the FR modifies the sheath relative to that over the wafer. On the one hand, one wants the sheath to be uniform across the wafer-FR boundary to enable uniform fluxes to the edge of the wafer. On the other hand, maintaining a high voltage sheath over the FR will erode the FR, which is undesirable as the FR is a consumable component that must be periodically replaced in high volume manufacturing. In this work, we computationally investigated the consequences of dielectric constant ε of the FR materials on erosion of the FR. The series capacitance of the FR and its underlying structure is typically smaller than that of the wafer and its underlying structure. As a result, the FR charges quickly relative to the wafer, which then reduces the voltage across the sheath on top of the FR. The ion energy and angular distributions (IEADs) striking the FR are, therefore, generally lower in energy with a broader angular distribution. With ε = 2, the ion energies striking the middle to the outer edge of the FR are 30–180 eV, whereas for ε = 100, the ion energies are 120–380 eV. At the transition between the wafer and the FR, there is a skew in the IEAD as large as 15° that results from the difference in sheath thickness above the wafer and the FR. This skew and the erosion rate across the FR are functions of the dielectric constant of the FR material. With low ε, the FR charges quickly, less plasma is produced above the FR, and there is less voltage across the sheath that results in less FR erosion. Increasing ε of the FR produces a higher sheath voltage as well as higher ion fluxes over the FR, which increases erosion, while the skew at the edge of the wafer is less severe. Further, the material of the subsurface portion of the FR, which dominates its capacitance, is an important consideration in the design of the substrate assembly.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2004

Inner Radiation Belt Representation of the Energetic Electron Environment: Model and Data Synthesis Using the Salammbo Radiation Belt Transport Code and Los Alamos Geosynchronous and GPS Energetic Particle Data

The highly energetic electron environment in the inner magnetosphere (GEO inward) has received a lot of research attention in resent years, as the dynamics of relativistic electron acceleration and transport are not yet fully understood. These electrons can cause deep dielectric charging in any space hardware in the MEO to GEO region. We use a new and novel approach to obtain a global representation of the inner magnetospheric energetic electron environment, which can reproduce the absolute environment (flux) for any spacecraft orbit in that region to within a factor of 2 for the energy range of 100 KeV to 5 MeV electrons, for any levels of magnetospheric activity. We combine the extensive set of inner magnetospheric energetic electron observations available at Los Alamos with the physics based Salammbo transport code, using the data assimilation technique of "nudging". This in effect input in-situ data into the code and allows the diffusion mechanisms in the code to interpolate the data into regions and times of no data availability. We present here details of the methods used, both in the data assimilation process and in the necessary inter-calibration of the input data used. We will present sample runs of the model/data code and compare the results to test spacecraft data not used in the data assimilation process.

Friedel, R. H. W.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Infant Mortality and Wear-Out Failures in Polymer and MnO2 Tantalum Capacitors

Reliability testing of modern tantalum capacitors shows the presence of both types, infant mortality (IM) and wearout (WO) failures. To assure reliable operation, the probability of IM failures should be reduced to below the specified level, and the time of WO inception should be greater than the required useful life of the parts at operation conditions. In this work, several types of MnO2 and polymer cathode tantalum capacitors have been tested at highly accelerated conditions to assess voltage acceleration factors, determine adequate burn-in conditions, and assess the useful life. A modified time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) model has been suggested to explain both types of failure, and a physical mechanism of degradation that is based on migration and reactions of oxygen vacancies explains increase of the defect related, IM failures with the level of stress.

tantalum capacitors↗
NASA NTRS2012

Some Aspects of the Failure Mechanisms in BaTiO3-Based Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors

The objective of this presentation is to gain insight into possible failure mechanisms in BaTiO3-based ceramic capacitors that may be associated with the reliability degradation that accompanies a reduction in dielectric thickness, as reported by Intel Corporation in 2010. The volumetric efficiency (microF/cm3) of a multilayer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) has been shown to not increase limitlessly due to the grain size effect on the dielectric constant of ferroelectric ceramic BaTiO3 material. The reliability of an MLCC has been discussed with respect to its structure. The MLCCs with higher numbers of dielectric layers will pose more challenges for the reliability of dielectric material, which is the case for most base-metal-electrode (BME) capacitors. A number of MLCCs manufactured using both precious-metal-electrode (PME) and BME technology, with 25 V rating and various chip sizes and capacitances, were tested at accelerated stress levels. Most of these MLCCs had a failure behavior with two mixed failure modes: the well-known rapid dielectric wearout, and so-called 'early failures." The two failure modes can be distinguished when the testing data were presented and normalized at use-level using a 2-parameter Weibull plot. The early failures had a slope parameter of Beta >1, indicating that the early failures are not infant mortalities. Early failures are triggered due to external electrical overstress and become dominant as dielectric layer thickness decreases, accompanied by a dramatic reduction in reliability. This indicates that early failures are the main cause of the reliability degradation in MLCCs as dielectric layer thickness decreases. All of the early failures are characterized by an avalanche-like breakdown leakage current. The failures have been attributed to the extrinsic minor construction defects introduced during fabrication of the capacitors. A reliability model including dielectric thickness and extrinsic defect feature size is proposed in this presentation. The model can be used to explain the Intel-reported reliability degradation in MLCCs with respect to the reduction of dielectric thickness. It can also be used to estimate the reliability of a MLCC based on its construction and microstructure parameters such as dielectric thickness, average grain size, and number of dielectric layers. Measures for preventing early failures are also discussed in this document.

Liu, David Donhang↗
NASA NTRS2011

Reliability Evaluation of Base-Metal-Electrode Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors for Potential Space Applications

Base-metal-electrode (BME) ceramic capacitors are being investigated for possible use in high-reliability spacelevel applications. This paper focuses on how BME capacitors construction and microstructure affects their lifetime and reliability. Examination of the construction and microstructure of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) BME capacitors reveals great variance in dielectric layer thickness, even among BME capacitors with the same rated voltage. Compared to PME (precious-metal-electrode) capacitors, BME capacitors exhibit a denser and more uniform microstructure, with an average grain size between 0.3 and 0.5 m, which is much less than that of most PME capacitors. BME capacitors can be fabricated with more internal electrode layers and thinner dielectric layers than PME capacitors because they have a fine-grained microstructure and do not shrink much during ceramic sintering. This makes it possible for BME capacitors to achieve a very high capacitance volumetric efficiency. The reliability of BME and PME capacitors was investigated using highly accelerated life testing (HALT). Most BME capacitors were found to fail with an early avalanche breakdown, followed by a regular dielectric wearout failure during the HALT test. When most of the early failures, characterized with avalanche breakdown, were removed, BME capacitors exhibited a minimum mean time-to-failure (MTTF) of more than 105 years at room temperature and rated voltage. Dielectric thickness was found to be a critical parameter for the reliability of BME capacitors. The number of stacked grains in a dielectric layer appears to play a significant role in determining BME capacitor reliability. Although dielectric layer thickness varies for a given rated voltage in BME capacitors, the number of stacked grains is relatively consistent, typically around 12 for a number of BME capacitors with a rated voltage of 25V. This may suggest that the number of grains per dielectric layer is more critical than the thickness itself for determining the rated voltage and the life expectancy of the BME capacitor. The leakage current characterization and the failure analysis results suggest that most of these early avalanche failures are due to the extrinsic minor construction defects introduced during fabrication of BME capacitors. The concentration of the extrinsic defects must be reduced if the BME capacitors are considered for high reliability applications. There are two approaches that can reduce or prevent the occurrence of early failure in BME capacitors: (1) to reduce the defect concentration with improved processing control; (2) to prevent the use of BME capacitors under harsh external stress levels so that the extrinsic defects will never be triggered for a failure. In order to do so appropriate dielectric layer thickness must be determined for a given rated voltage.

Liu, David (Donhang)↗
NASA NTRS2021

Acceleration Factors for Reliability Assessment of Polymer Tantalum Capacitors

Using polymer tantalum capacitors in Hi-Rel systems requires an assessment of the reliability characteristics of the parts. For this assessment, tantalum capacitors are typically subjected to reliability testing at temperatures and voltages exceeding their specified values, and the failure rate (FR) — or the probability of failure during use conditions — is calculated based on voltage and temperature acceleration factors. In this work, various types and lots of polymer tantalum capacitors have been tested at highly accelerated life test (HALT) conditions and the acceleration factors have been determined using different techniques. It has been shown that the behavior of capacitors under HALT conditions can be described based on the time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) model, which explains the presence of infant mortality (IM) and wear-out failures using the same failure mechanisms and allows for an assessment of the acceleration factors. The difference in acceleration factors obtained using exponential and power models is discussed. Analysis shows that with proper derating, screening, and qualification testing, the reliability of frameless Hi-Rel COTS polymer tantalum capacitors is adequate for space missions.

Alex Eidelman↗
NASA NTRS2021

Acceleration Factors for Reliability Assessment of Polymer Tantalum Capacitors

Using polymer tantalum capacitors in Hi-Rel systems requires an assessment of the reliability characteristics of the parts. For this assessment, tantalum capacitors are typically subjected to reliability testing at temperatures and voltages exceeding their specified values, and the failure rate (FR) — or the probability of failure during use conditions — is calculated based on voltage and temperature acceleration factors. In this work, various types and lots of polymer tantalum capacitors have been tested at highly accelerated life test (HALT) conditions and the acceleration factors have been determined using different techniques. It has been shown that the behavior of capacitors under HALT conditions can be described based on the time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) model, which explains the presence of infant mortality (IM) and wear-out failures using the same failure mechanisms and allows for an assessment of the acceleration factors. The difference in acceleration factors obtained using exponential and power models is discussed. Analysis shows that with proper derating, screening, and qualification testing, the reliability of frameless Hi-Rel COTS polymer tantalum capacitors is adequate for space missions.

Alex Eidelman↗
DOE OSTI2026

2D nanoconfinement distorts the solvation structure of hydroxide but not of hydronium

Understanding ion-specific behavior in nanoconfined water is essential for controlling charge transport and selectivity in two-dimensional membranes. Motivated by recent experiments revealing anomalous dielectric and transport behavior of water confined between hBN sheets, we use machine-learning-accelerated first-principles molecular dynamics to investigate the interfacial propensities of hydronium and hydroxide ions under similar confinement. We find that hydronium remains interfacial across all confinement regimes, whereas hydroxide shifts toward the interior as the environment becomes more bulk-like. This contrasting behavior reflects the combined influence of hydrogen bonding, interfacial water layering, and the polarization of hBN, which collectively stabilize hydronium at the surface while making hydroxide slightly more favorable within the structured interior. These findings expose an asymmetry in ion-surface coupling and establish a microscopic origin for hydronium’s enhanced interfacial affinity. The results provide mechanistic insight into ion partitioning in two-dimensional channels and highlight the collective structuring of confined water as a key determinant of interfacial ion thermodynamics.

organic↗
NASA NTRS1971

Design and development of a small structurally integrated ion thruster system

A 5 cm structurally integrated ion thruster has been developed for attitude control and stationkeeping of synchronous satellites. With 2-D vectorable grids, thrust is 0.56 mlb at a beam voltage of 1200 V, total mass efficiency is 64%, and electrical efficiency is 46.8%. Nonvectoring thrust of 0.41 is demonstrated at very low specific impulse with dielectric coated grids. Structural integrity is demonstrated with dielectric coated grids for shock (30 G), sinusoidal (9 G), and random (19 G squared/Hz) accelerations. System envelope is 31.6 cm long by 14 cm flange B.C. with a mass of 8.5 kg including 6.2 Kg mercury propellant.

Hyman, J., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1972

SIT-5 system development.

A 5-cm structurally integrated ion thruster (SIT-5) has been developed for attitude control and stationkeeping of synchronous satellites. With two-dimension thrust-vectoring grids, a first generation unit has demonstrated a thrust of 0.56 mlb at a beam voltage of 1200 V, total mass efficiency of 64%, and electrical efficiency of 46.8%. Structural integrity is demonstrated with a dielectric-coated grid for shock (30 G), sinusoidal (9 G), and random (19.9 G rms) accelerations. System envelope is 31.8 cm long by 13.9 cm flange bolt circle, with a mass of 8.5 kg, including 6.2 kg mercury propellant. Characteristics of a second-generation unit indicate significant performance gains.

Hyman, J., Jr.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Description of longitudinal space charge effects in beams and plasma through dielectric permittivity

We develop a universal framework which allows quickly solve a wide class of problems for longitudinal space charge effects in beams and plasmas in cylindrical geometry. We introduce the longitudinal dielectric permittivity for the beam of charged particles, which describes its collective space charge response. The analysis yields an effective plasma frequency, which depends on the transverse geometry of the system. This dielectric permittivity mirrors the dielectric permittivity of plasma and matches the one dimensional (1D) expression once the transverse size of the beam is large. Several particle species can be included as additive terms describing susceptibility of each specie. The developed approach allows to study stability criteria for collective beam-beam and beam-plasma instabilities for arbitrary transverse distributions in particle densities.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
NASA NTRS2011

Reliability Evaluation of Base-Metal-Electrode (BME) Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors for Space Applications

This paper reports reliability evaluation of BME ceramic capacitors for possible high reliability space-level applications. The study is focused on the construction and microstructure of BME capacitors and their impacts on the capacitor life reliability. First, the examinations of the construction and microstructure of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) BME capacitors show great variance in dielectric layer thickness, even among BME capacitors with the same rated voltage. Compared to PME (precious-metal-electrode) capacitors, BME capacitors exhibit a denser and more uniform microstructure, with an average grain size between 0.3 and approximately 0.5 micrometers, which is much less than that of most PME capacitors. The primary reasons that a BME capacitor can be fabricated with more internal electrode layers and less dielectric layer thickness is that it has a fine-grained microstructure and does not shrink much during ceramic sintering. This results in the BME capacitors a very high volumetric efficiency. The reliability of BME and PME capacitors was investigated using highly accelerated life testing (HALT) and regular life testing as per MIL-PRF-123. Most BME capacitors were found to fail· with an early dielectric wearout, followed by a rapid wearout failure mode during the HALT test. When most of the early wearout failures were removed, BME capacitors exhibited a minimum mean time-to-failure of more than 10(exp 5) years. Dielectric thickness was found to be a critical parameter for the reliability of BME capacitors. The number of stacked grains in a dielectric layer appears to play a significant role in determining BME capacitor reliability. Although dielectric layer thickness varies for a given rated voltage in BME capacitors, the number of stacked grains is relatively consistent, typically between 10 and 20. This may suggest that the number of grains per dielectric layer is more critical than the thickness itself for determining the rated voltage and the life expectancy of the BME capacitor. Since BME capacitors have a much smaller grain size than PME capacitors, it is reasonable to predict that BME capacitors with thinner dielectric layers may have an equivalent life expectancy to that of PME capacitors with thicker dielectric layers.

Liu, David (Donghang)↗
DOE OSTI2025

BACKFLIP: A Comparison of Market-Benchmark Backsheet Technologies to Novel Non-Fluoro-Based Coextruded Materials and Their Correlation and Impact on PV Module Degradation Rates: Final Results of the Study at 4000 Hours or 2 Years

As the photovoltaic (PV) industry is rapidly expanding around the world, there has been an increasing interest in extending the lifespan of PV modules. Concern has also emerged regarding the recyclability of modules and their component materials, including fluoropolymer-based backsheets. Laminated polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) core backsheets have traditionally been used in the PV industry, but new, co-extruded polyolefin (PO) backsheets show promise as an improved alternative. Mini-module and coupon samples of seven different backsheets (made of layers including contemporary PET and fluoropolymers, novel PO, and polyamide (PA) materials) were run through hygrometric- or UV photolytic-accelerated aging to identify and better understand each material's degradation modes and the backsheets' field reliability. In addition to the artificial aging, the natural weathering methods used in this study are described. The comprehensive set of chemical, mechanical, and structural characterizations at intermittent read points in this study is presented, including: visual appearance and color; gloss; mechanical tensile testing; I-V performance; electroluminescence (EL) imaging; dielectric breakdown; FTIR-chemical structure; X-ray-polymer structure (WAXS); and DSC-crystalline content. After 4000 h of accelerated aging or 2y of outdoor aging, a strong correlation occurs between initial physical characteristics (mechanical tensile test) and operating performance (EL and I-V characteristics).

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Sub-diffractional cavity modes of terahertz hyperbolic phonon polaritons in tin oxide

Abstract Hyperbolic phonon polaritons have recently attracted considerable attention in nanophotonics mostly due to their intrinsic strong electromagnetic field confinement, ultraslow polariton group velocities, and long lifetimes. Here we introduce tin oxide (SnO 2 ) nanobelts as a photonic platform for the transport of surface and volume phonon polaritons in the mid- to far-infrared frequency range. This report brings a comprehensive description of the polaritonic properties of SnO 2 as a nanometer-sized dielectric and also as an engineered material in the form of a waveguide. By combining accelerator-based IR-THz sources (synchrotron and free-electron laser) with s-SNOM, we employed nanoscale far-infrared hyper-spectral-imaging to uncover a Fabry–Perot cavity mechanism in SnO 2 nanobelts via direct detection of phonon-polariton standing waves. Our experimental findings are accurately supported by notable convergence between theory and numerical simulations. Thus, the SnO 2 is confirmed as a natural hyperbolic material with unique photonic properties essential for future applications involving subdiffractional light traffic and detection in the far-infrared range.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Polarity-dependence of the nonlinear dielectric response in interfacial water

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the nonlinear dielectric responses of a confined aqueous film in a planar nanopore under perpendicular electric fields at varied voltages between confining graphene sheets. Dielectric saturation reminiscent of the bulk phase behavior is prevalent at very strong fields, whereas we observe a nonmonotonic permittivity dependence on the electric field at intermediate strengths where field-alignment and spontaneous polarization of interfacial water are of comparable magnitude. The coupling between the two effects results in distinct dielectric responses at opposite confinement walls. The normal component of both the differential dielectric constant and dielectric difference constant tensors averaged over the region closer to the wall under an incoming electric field (field pointing from the liquid to the solid phase) initially increases with the strength of the imposed field. The differential permittivity peaks at a field strength previously shown to offset the surface-induced orientation bias of hydration molecules at this wall. Further strengthening of the field results in a conventional saturation behavior. At the opposite wall (subject to outgoing field) and in the central region of the water slab, the nonlinear dielectric response resembles bulklike saturation. The conditions at the permittivity extremum coincide with the window of accelerated reorientation rates of interfacial water molecules under an incoming field we uncovered in earlier molecular dynamics analyses.

Chemistry↗