US Patent 7265406 - Nanostructure array capacitor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7265406.html

The capacitance of electrical storage devices is a function of the surface area separating the electrodes that make up the capacitor as well as the dielectric material used in the separation. While hafnium-based dielectrics have been proposed to increase the capacitance this patent from Intel focuses on another route based on the high surface areas of nanostructures. Claim 1 reads:

1. A device comprising: a substrate; a lower insulator disposed over said substrate; a lower conductor disposed over said lower insulator; a conducting nanostructure disposed over said lower conductor, said conducting nanostructure being part of a discontinuous layer over said lower conductor, said conducting nanostructure being part of a highly regular, systematic array; a thin dielectric disposed over said conducting nanostructure; an upper conductor disposed over said thin dielectric; and an upper insulator disposed over said upper conductor.