Claims:We Claim:
1. An electroluminescent capacitor (100) to dissipate EMI, EMC, RFI noise as light, wherein said electroluminescent capacitor (100) comprises of:
? a pair of electrical conductors, a first electrical conductor (102) and a second electrical conductor (104) electrically connected (110) and placed in a spaced apart manner,
? an insulator (106) formed on said second electrical conductor (104), and
? a phosphor layer (108) of predetermined composition and thickness, interposed between said first electrical conductor (102) and said insulator (106),
wherein said first and second electrical conductors (102, 104) are of a preset area and are kept separated at a preset distance,
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor (100) is configured to exhibit low impedance at a resonant frequency band and high impedance at an operating or working frequency band, and
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor (100) is configured to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
2. An electroluminescent capacitor to dissipate EMI, EMC, RFI noise as light in cables (200), wherein said electroluminescent capacitor comprises of:
? a conducting wire of (202) a predetermined length and diameter,
? an insulator (204) surrounding said conducting wire (202),
? a phosphor layer (206) of a predetermined composition and thickness surrounding said insulator (204),
wherein said cable (200) has an inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire which are kept separated at a preset distance,
wherein said cable (200) is configured to exhibit low impedance between inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire at a resonant frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light, and
wherein said cable (200) is configured to exhibit high impedance between inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire at an operating or working frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
3. An electroluminescent capacitor to dissipate EMI, EMC, RFI noise as light in PCBs (300), wherein said electroluminescent capacitor comprises of:
? a pair of electrical conductors, a first electrical conductor and a second electrical conductor electrically connected and placed in a spaced apart manner,
? an insulator formed on said second electrical conductor, and
? a phosphor layer of predetermined composition and thickness, interposed between said first electrical conductor and said insulator,
wherein said first and second electrical conductors are of a preset area and are kept separated at a preset distance,
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is sandwiched (302) between PCB layers,
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is configured to exhibit low impedance between said PCB layers at a resonant frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light, and
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is configured to exhibit high impedance between said PCB layers at an operating or working frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
4. The electroluminescent capacitor as claimed in any of the above claims, wherein said electroluminescent capacitor (100), electroluminescent capacitor based cable (200) and PCB (300) is covered with a non-transparent material (114).
5. The electroluminescent capacitor as claimed in any of the above claims, wherein said electroluminescent capacitor (100), electroluminescent capacitor based cable (200) and PCB (300) is covered with a transparent material (112).
6. The electroluminescent capacitor as claimed in any of the above claims, wherein the thickness of said insulator (106) depends on breakdown voltage and required capacitance.
7. The electroluminescent capacitor as claimed in any of the above claims, wherein said EMI, EMC and RFI noise emitted as light is negligible in intensity. , Description:ELECTROLUMINESCENT CAPACITOR TO DISSIPATE EMI, EMC, RFI NOISE AS LIGHT

FIELD OF INVENTION
The present invention relates to an electroluminescent capacitor, which when used in electrical components such as Printed Circuit Boards (PCB’s), cables and capacitors will reduce emissions and improves interference performance. Moreover, said electroluminescent capacitor dissipates the EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) and RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) noise as light, when used in said Printed Circuit Boards (PCB’s), cables and capacitors.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Phosphorous when placed as an insulator between two electrical conductors will act like a dielectric between said electrical conductors and creates a capacitor. This phosphorous based capacitor will emit light when high frequency electric field is applied between the electrical conductors. Electroluminescent capacitor (ELC) is currently used for night lights, advertisement boards and toy manufacturing. ELC is also called as LEC “Light Emitting Capacitors”. The capacitance in said electroluminescent capacitor can be changed by selecting the required physical specifications for the required capacitance and the intensity of light emissions can be selected based on the dopant activator concentration.
ELC “Electroluminescent Capacitor” will also dissipate energy similar like ferrite bead. Ferrite beads dissipate high frequency noise as heat, whereas, an electroluminescent capacitor will dissipate high frequency noise as light and eliminate circulating current in the product and system. In the electroluminescent capacitor, noise power dissipation will be maximum at the ELC resonance frequency, higher the applied noise frequency higher will be the light emitted by said electroluminescent capacitor and power dissipated as light will be more. This high frequency noise dissipation and efficiency of light conversion can be tuned by changing the composition of the phosphor and its dopant activator concentration.
There is no device or technique which will work effectively similar like ferrite bead to dissipate high frequency common mode noise as heat and eliminate circulating current in the product or system when connected in parallel between power or signal lines and ground. However, these ferrite beads can only be used in series to dissipate high frequency common mode noise as heat. Conducted and radiated emissions reduction has become complex in electronic product design. With increased switching speeds and clock frequency, multiple hardware design iterations will be required to reduce the emissions, retesting cost for analysis, debugging and compliance recertification is high. Practically in most of the products, design changes made to improve emissions will lead to reduced interference performance and design changes made to improve interference will lead to reduce emission performance. This can be due to unavoidable circulating noise current in the product or system with non-energy dissipative parallel filter components. Current devices and products can’t display any indication whenever there is any occurrence of an electromagnetic interference. The root cause for the product or systems failure due to EMI issues during daily operation in real time installation conditions can’t be captured without a costly and sophisticated equipment installed for logging the electromagnetic interference events.
Certain prior art documents discloses electroluminescent devices used for various purposes. United States patent no. US 8330381 B2 speaks of an electronic circuit for DC conversion of fluorescent lighting ballast. The invention as disclosed in US 8330381 B2 provides embodiments of an illumination device including LEDs for connection to an existing fluorescent lamp fixture including conventional ballast. However, the idea disclosed in US 8330381 B2 is related to ballast design for LED driving and does not speak of ELC used for EMI, EMC, and RFI noise dissipation or of the visual indication of load and noise current flow.
Another prior art document US 9210762 discloses an electroluminescent device comprising a pair of electroluminescent stacks, each stack comprising a first electrode layer, a second electrode layer and an electroluminescent layer being located between the first and second electrode layers, an electrical connection between the two stacks each of the second electrode layers comprising a conductive plate, the two conductive plates forming a pair of receiver electrodes for capacitive power transfer. But the invention disclosed in US 9210762 is related to OLED based wireless power transfer method, and does not speak of an ELC used for EMI, EMC and RFI noise dissipation.
Similarly, another prior art document US 20150257210 divulges an electroluminescent display and lighting. The embodiments of this invention (i.e. US 20150257210) include: electroluminescent layer constructions; stacked or side-by-side arrangements of electroluminescent elements; and color pixels, displays and light sources comprising multiple such arrangements. Embodiments of this invention (i.e. US 20150257210) may include touch sensitive, haptic and/or lenticular 3D features. The idea disclosed in US 20150257210 is related to EL lamp reliability and performance improvement for display purpose and is not used for EMI, EMC and RFI noise dissipation. Moreover, this idea (as disclosed in US 20150257210) has not used PCB Layered ELC capacitors for EMI and EMC dissipation.
Along with the current EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) and RFI (Radio Frequency Interference) design guidelines like grounding, shielding, filtering, PCB design, controlled signal rise times. The present invention proposes an ELC “Electroluminescent capacitor” to reduce the emissions and improve interference performance of a product or system. This concept has not yet been implemented in the electronic product and system designs to improve EMI EMC and RFI performance.
The advantages of using a phosphor based electroluminescent capacitor to dissipate EMI EMC and RFI noise as light is listed below:
• Number of Design iterations will be reduced.

• Faster design cycle.

• EMI EMC Testing cost will be reduced due to a reduced number of iterations.

• This capacitor based noise power dissipation technique can be applied in panels and busbars also to reduce EMI EMC effects.

• This EL capacitor based noise power dissipation as light can be implemented with Electrochromic materials as well.

• Easy to fabricate ELC based PCB, ELC based cables.

• Reduce complexity of EMI EMC design limitations.

• Reduce system level EMC failures, reduces field failures.

• EMC failure diagnosis will be very simple and effective with transparent ELC method.

• System level cable routing and product mounting will have less impact on emissions and immunity.

• ELC Based transparent cables can be used to indicate noisy cables in the system and also can be used to indicate loaded and unloaded cables.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides an electroluminescent capacitor to dissipate EMI, EMC, RFI noise as light, said electroluminescent capacitor comprises of:
? a pair of electrical conductors, a first electrical conductor and a second electrical conductor electrically connected and placed in a spaced apart manner,
? an insulator formed on said second electrical conductor, and
? a phosphor layer of predetermined composition and thickness, interposed between said first electrical conductor and said insulator,
wherein said first and second electrical conductors are of a preset area and are kept separated at a preset distance,
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is configured to exhibit low impedance at a resonant frequency band and high impedance at an operating or working frequency band, and
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is configured to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
According to one embodiment of the invention, the electroluminescent capacitor to dissipate EMI, EMC, RFI noise as light in cables, said electroluminescent capacitor comprises of:
? a conducting wire of a predetermined length and diameter,
? an insulator surrounding said conducting wire,
? a phosphor layer of a predetermined composition and thickness surrounding said insulator,
wherein said cable has an inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire which are kept separated at a preset distance,
wherein said cable is configured to exhibit low impedance between inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire at a resonant frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light, and
wherein said cable is configured to exhibit high impedance between inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire at an operating or working frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
According to another embodiment of the invention, the electroluminescent capacitor to dissipate EMI, EMC, RFI noise as light in PCBs, said electroluminescent capacitor comprises of:
? a pair of electrical conductors, a first electrical conductor and a second electrical conductor electrically connected and placed in a spaced apart manner,
? an insulator formed on said second electrical conductor, and
? a phosphor layer of predetermined composition and thickness, interposed between said first electrical conductor and said insulator,
wherein said first and second electrical conductors are of a preset area and are kept separated at a preset distance,
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is sandwiched between PCB layers,
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is configured to exhibit low impedance between said PCB layers at a resonant frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light, and
wherein said electroluminescent capacitor is configured to exhibit high impedance between said PCB layers at an operating or working frequency band to dissipate EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
According to a further embodiment of the invention, said electroluminescent capacitor, electroluminescent capacitor based cable and PCB is covered with a non-transparent material.
According to one of the embodiment of the invention, wherein said electroluminescent capacitor, electroluminescent capacitor based cable and PCB is covered with a transparent material.
According to yet another embodiment of the invention, wherein the thickness of said insulator depends on breakdown voltage and required capacitance.
According to another embodiment of the invention, wherein said EMI, EMC and RFI noise emitted as light is negligible in intensity.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS
For better understanding, various embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It will, however, be appreciated that the embodiments exemplified in the drawings are merely illustrative and not limitative to the scope of the invention, because it is quite possible, indeed often desirable, to introduce a number of variations in the embodiments that have not been shown in the drawings. In the accompanying drawings:
Figure 1 illustrates an electroluminescent capacitor which dissipates EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light.
Figure 2(a) illustrates an electroluminescent capacitor based shielded twisted pair cable.
Figure 2(b) illustrates an electroluminescent capacitor based unshielded twisted pair cable.
Figure 2(c) is an electroluminescent capacitor based shielded cable.
Figure 2(d) is an electroluminescent capacitor based cable.
Figure 3 illustrates an electroluminescent capacitor based Printed Circuit Board.
Figure 4(a) shows an electroluminescent capacitor with protective transparent layer.
Figure 4(b) shows an electroluminescent capacitor with protective non-transparent layer.
Figure 5 illustrates a prototype of the invented electroluminescent capacitor.
Figure 6 is another prototype of the invented electroluminescent capacitor used as Y- capacitor between N-PE and L-PE.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible same numerals will be used to refer to the same or like parts.
Referring to figure 1 of the accompanying drawings, an electroluminescent capacitor (ELC) (100) comprises of two electrical conductors or electrodes, a first electrical conductor (102) and a second electrical conductor (104), an insulator (106) and a phosphor layer (108). The first electrical conductor (102) and second electrical conductor (104) is electrically connected (110) and is configured to emit light when high frequency electric field is applied between said electrical conductors (102, 104). The first and second electrical conductors (102 and 104) are placed in a spaced apart manner. The insulator (106) is formed on the second electrical conductor (104). The phosphor layer (108) is interposed between said first electrical conductor (102) and said insulator (106). The first and second electrical conductors (102 and 104) are of a predetermined area, so as the distance between said first and second electrical conductors (102 and 104) are also preset. Moreover, the composition and the thickness of the phosphor layer (108) are also predetermined for dissipation of EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light into the environment. This electroluminescent capacitor (100) developed with said suitable composition of phosphorous (i.e. phosphor layer (108)), predetermined thickness of the insulator (106), preset area and distance between the conductors (102, 104), exhibits low impedance at the interested resonant frequency band and working voltage. Electroluminescent capacitor (100) with this composition can be used for dissipation of EMI, EMC and RFI noise as light. Also, said electroluminescent capacitor (100) will have high impedance at a wanted or operating frequency band. The electroluminescent capacitor (100) with this composition can also be tuned to develop Y-capacitors which are used for safety and EMI, EMC and RFI noise dissipation as light between Earth and power lines. A sample electroluminescent capacitor (100) with the aforementioned composition and structure is tuned to develop Y- capacitor and is illustrated in figure 6. Similarly, said composition of the electroluminescent capacitor (100) can be changed to develop X, Y, bypass and decoupling capacitors to have different impedances at wanted and unwanted frequency ranges. This noise dissipating electroluminescent capacitor (100) as disclosed in the present invention can also be made with electrochromic materials for EMI, EMC and RFI improvements.
ELC (100) power dissipation as light depends on the applied signal frequency, voltage level, and the numbers of phosphor layers (108) between the two electrical conductors (102, and 104). Multi layered ELC (as shown in figure 5) can be used effectively to suppress high frequency high energy interference entering into an electrical product from external interfaces, and a reduced layer electroluminescent capacitors can be used effectively to suppress high frequency low energy emissions and noise generated within the electrical product or system. As discussed above, a prototype version of said multi layered ELC, as illustrated in figure 5, was designed and tested as Y-capacitors between L-PE and N-PE with a phosphorus coated copper wire, these sample capacitors were very effective and the results were positive with different EMI EMC tests and results were compared with existing X and Y capacitors. Phosphorous capacitors or said ELC (100) will serve the purpose as normal capacitor to suppress the noise from the system (i.e. an electrical product) and also dissipate the noise into environment as Light (Xc= 1/2piFC).
A tabulation of the tests conducted with phosphorus coated copper wire is given below.
Test description Port Tested Test Standard Limits tested Pass Criteria met Remarks
Product 1 with Normal Y caps Product 1 with ELC Y caps
Conducted emissions Power L and N vs PE CISPR 22 CISPR 22 Class B Class A Class B Conducted Emissions on Power lines reduced by 12 dBuv from Normal capacitors to ELC capacitors
Surge 1.2us/50us Power L-PE, N-PE IEC61000-4-5 2.5KV A A
Electrical fast transients Power L-PE, N-PE IEC61000-4-4 4KV, 5Khz and 100Khz A A
Conducted radio frequency EM field immunity test (CS) Power IEC61000-4-6 25 Vrms / 150 Kzh to 80 Mhz
ESD Product IEC61000-4-2 8kv AD 4KV CD A A
Dielectric LN-PE UL 61010 1.6KV 1KV, 1.6KV
Impulse 1.2us/50us LN-PE UL 61010 2.5KV 2.5KV 2.5KV

Figure 2 shows a set of ELC based cables (200). This electroluminescent capacitor based cables or ELC cables (200) will reduce emissions and improve interference performance by dissipating high frequency noise as light. These ELC cables (200) are also configured to eliminate circulating current in the electrical product and system. Higher the noise frequency, more will be the light emitted by the ELC based cable (200). In this case, the power dissipated by the light will also be more. As shown in figures 2(a) to 2(d), ELC based cables (200) will be developed with suitable conducting wire (202) of predetermined length and diameter, an insulator or dielectric (204), a phosphor layer (206) of a predetermined composition and thickness. The insulator (204) surrounds the conducting wire (202) and said phosphor layer (206) surrounds the insulator (204). The ELC based cable (200) has an inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire which are kept separated at a preset distance. This ELC based cable (200) has low impedance between inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire at resonant frequency band to dissipate unwanted high frequency noise (EMI, EMC and RFI) as light. This ELC based cable (200) will also have high capacitive impedance between said inner conducting wire and outer conducting ground wire for wanted or operating frequency ranges. ELC cables (200) with this composition is suitable for high frequency EMI EMC and RFI noise dissipation as light and also serve the normal functional requirements when used as interconnecting cable between different electrical products and systems. The composition will be selected based on the impedance requirements for wanted and unwanted frequency ranges.
Figure 2(a) illustrates an ELC based shielded twisted pair cable (200-1). This cable (200-1) consists of conductor wires (202). These conductor wires (202) are a twisted pair and is phosphor coated. A dielectric or insulator (204) surrounds the phosphor coated twisted pair wires (202) and is then covered by a shield (208). The shield (208) is protected by a non-transparent PVC sleeve (210). Figure 2(b) shows an ELC based unshielded twisted pair cable (200-2). This cable (200-2) is similar to the one disclosed in figure 2(a). However, in this cable (200-2) a copper wire (214) is wound on the insulator (204). Furthermore, instead of the shield (208), this cable (200-2) is covered by a non-transparent (210) and colored PVC sleeve (212). Figure 2(c) illustrates an ELC based shielded cable (200-3). This cable (200-3) consists of a conductor wire (202) of predetermined length and diameter. The dielectric or insulator (204) surrounds said conducting wire (202), which is further surrounded by the phosphor layer (206). The conducting wire (202), insulator (204) and phosphor layer (206) present in the cable (200-3) is covered by a shield (208). The shield (208) is further covered by a non-transparent (210) and colored PVC sleeve (212). Figure 2(d) illustrates an ELC based cable (200-4). This cable (200-4) is similar to the one shown in figure 2(c). However, this cable (200-4) is unshielded and the phosphor layer (206) present in this cable (200-4) is wound by a copper wire (214). The thickness of the insulator or dielectric (204) between said phosphor layer (206) and the conducting wire (202) depends on the breakdown voltage and required capacitance.
Figure 3 illustrates an ELC based PCB (Printed Circuit Board) (300). The electroluminescent capacitor used here is similar to the one described under figure 1. Here, the electroluminescent capacitors (100) are stacked or sandwiched (302) between PCB layers. The ELC based PCB (300) with multi-layer stacking will reduce emissions and improve interference performance, this ELC based PCB (300) will dissipate high frequency noise as light and eliminate circulating current in the product and system. If the noise frequency increases, the light emitted by said ELC based PCB (300) will also increase and the power dissipated as light will also be more. The ELC based PCB (300) will have low impedance between PCB layers at the resonance frequency band to dissipate unwanted high frequency noise as light, and same composition will have high capacitive impedance between PCB layers for the wanted frequency range, PCB with this composition can be suitable for the EMI, EMC and RFI high frequency noise dissipation as light and will also serve the normal functional requirements when used as an interconnecting cable between different electrical products and systems. Finally, the composition will be selected based on the impedance requirements for wanted and unwanted frequency range. The electroluminescent X, Y capacitors (100), ELC based cable(s) (200) and ELC based PCB (300) will be used as EMI, EMC and RFI fault indicators in the systems and products. The electroluminescent based cables (200) can be used to loaded and unloaded lines and also will be used to indicate EMI, EMC and RFI noise flow.
The electroluminescent capacitor (100), ELC based cable (200) and ELC based PCB (300) can be covered with a protective transparent material or layer (112), as illustrated in figure 4(a). This makes the light emitted by said electroluminescent capacitor (100), ELC based cable (200) and ELC based PCB (300) to be viewed by the end user, thus notifying him/her of the electromagnetic interference that has occurred. The composition of the phosphor layer (108) and dopant activator ion concentration can be altered to make the product glow longer even after the noise has been removed. This will help the user to note the EM interference that has occurred or occurring. With this, a user can also trace the common mode noise path based with the illuminated PCB tracks and external interfacing cables. For example, with transparent electroluminescent Y capacitors the user can indicate the safety hazard. If Earth line gets disconnected from equipment body and at the same time if phase wire gets shorted with equipment metal body the ELY cap between equipment body and neutral will glow in the color it’s designed. Transparent ELC can be used as X Y and bypass capacitors which can clearly indicate the flow of high frequency common mode current flow on the PCB and system. The EMI, EMC and RFI light emitted will be of negligible intensity and will not cause any functional and regulatory issues to the human and other equipments in the vicinity.
The electroluminescent capacitor (100), ELC based cable (200) and ELC based PCB (300) can be covered with a protective non-transparent material or layer (114), as illustrated in figure 4(b). Here, high frequency noise which is dissipated into the environment as light will not be visible outside due to said non-transparent material (114).

As already mentioned the foregoing description is illustrative of the invention and not limitative to its scope; because it will be apparent to persons skilled in the art to devise other alternative embodiments without departing from the broad ambit of the disclosures made herein