Yttria Stabilized Zirconia as a Candidate for High Energy Density Capacitor

Abstract

As one of the main components in power converters, dielectric capacitors can play crucial roles in facilitating power conversion in various applications, such as hybrid-electric and fuel cell vehicles. Capacitor reliability is a key challenge for development of high performance capacitors. In this study, yttrium stabilized zirconia (YSZ) with various yttria concentrations were fabricated and tested for dielectric properties, such as breakdown strength and dielectric loss factors. The results indicated that the breakdown strength as high as 2 MV/cm could be achieved in YSZ samples with 10 mol% yttria. In addition, the dielectric loss factors of the samples were lower than 0.4%. Superior breakdown strength and relatively low loss demonstrated that YSZ ceramics have high reliability, showing a great potential as candidates for high energy density capacitors.