Intellectual Property Office
Non-Confidential Disclosures
"Controlled, Deposited Nano-Porous Silicon Films for Biomedical Applications”
PSU Invention Disclosure No. 2069
Field of the Invention/Key Words:
A new low-temperature method for the production of controlled porous polycrystalline silicon films on flexible substrates for biomedical applications.
Inventors:
A. Kalkan, S. Bae, and S. Fonash
Invention description:
The invention is a high surface area carbon with tunable microporosity and mesoporosity derived from coal tar pitch/polymer blends. We use a very inexpensive precursor providing an excellent yield of carbon. The porosity is concentrated within a relatively narrow range and is highly tunable by varying the molecular weight of the pore forming material. A further advantage of the technology is that it does not involve any post treatment of activated carbon to remove impurities. Electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) prototypes having a specific capacitance of about 180 F/g were made using H2SO4 as the electolyte. Performance of the EDLC was fairly stable over hundreds of cycles. These materials will make excellent candidates for electrodes providing high specific capacitance (per volume and mass) in EDLCs.
These hydrolyzed, hydrophobic oligomers and polymers have a wide range of applications including surface coating additives and polymer plasticizers. In addition, they can be used in blends as compatibilizers between fluorinated and non-fluorinated polymers, as well as, function as high performance hydraulic fluids or hydrophobic lubricants. The combination of fire-resistance, extreme hydrophobicity, and compatibility with commercial surface coatings will lead to applications in the automobile, aircraft, and marine manufacturing industries.
Advantages:
- Relatively high degree of porosity (up to 75%)
- Low temperature process (films can be deposited on plastics, metal foils, etc.)
- Can be deposited on flexible substrates
- Control of void size and void fraction (pore sizes down to nanometer range)
- Lack of anodization-based wet processing
- Silicon in films is polycrystalline and not amorphous as in other columnar silicon films
- Films can be doped n-type or p-type
- Films can be modified with chemical processing (i.e., oxidation, silicidation, nitridation, etc.)
- Film properties (chemical activity, mechanical strength, etc.) can be modified by subsequent film coatings
Contact:
Richard M. Weyer
Sr. Technology Licensing Officer
Intellectual Property Office
The Pennsylvania State University
113 Technology Center
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: (814) 865-6279
Fax: (814) 865-3591
E-mail: rmw4@psu.edu |
