Mira Josowicz

Electrochemical Encapsulation of Solid State Devices

The need for encapsulation of solid state devices, particularly of those which are chronically exposed to chemical environment, has been long recognized as one of the outstanding problems in their use. These devices range from solar cells to chemical and physical sensors and the nature of the chemical environment varies from atmospheric exposure to biological fluids. Additional corrosion problems can occur due to presence of high electrical fields at the device surfaces and in dielectrics which may be as high as 100 kV/cm. The primary purpose of the encapsulation is to prevent the degradation of the materials from which the device is constructed which might result in the premature device failure. Equally important is the aspect of the electrical safety of the devices which are used for medical purposes or in the chemical environment in which the live electrical components could present operational problems such as contamination of the environment with the electrolytic products, explosion hazards etc..