The fractional–order capacitors add an additional degree of freedom over conventional capacitors in circuit design and facilitate circuit configurations that would be impractical or impossible to implement with conventional capacitors. We propose a generic strategy for fractional-order capacitor fabrication that integrates layers of conductive, semiconductor and ferroelectric polymer materials to create a composite with significantly improved constant phase angle, constant phase zone, and phase angle variation performance. Our approach involves a combination of dissolving the polymer powders, mixing distinct phases and making a film and capacitor of it. The resulting stack consisting of ferroelectric polymer-based composites shows constant phase angle over a broad range of frequencies. To prove the viability of this method, we have successfully fabricated fractional-order capacitors with the following: nanoparticles such as multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT), Molybdenum sulfide (MoS2) inserted ferroelectric polymers and PVDF based ferroelectric polymer blends. They show better performance in terms of fabrication cost and dynamic range of constant phase angle compared to fractional order capacitor from graphene percolated polymer composites. These results can be explained by a universal percolation model, where the combination of electron transport in fillers and the dielectric relaxation time distribution of the permanent dipoles of ferroelectric polymers increase the constant phase angle level and constant phase zone of fractional-order capacitors. This approach opens up a new avenue in fabricating fractional capacitors involving a variety of heterostructures combining the different fillers and different matrixes.

Lipid structures, such as liposomes or micelles, are of high interest as an approach to support the transport and delivery of active agents as a drug delivery system. However, there are many open questions regarding their uptake and impact on cellular metabolism. In this study, lipid structures were assembled as a supported lipid bilayer on top of biopolymer-coated microcarriers based on the Layer-by-Layer assembly strategy. The functionalized microcarriers were then applied to various human and animal cell lines in addition to primary human macrophages (MΦ). Here, their influence on cellular metabolism and their intracellular localization were detected by extracellular flux analysis and immunofluorescence analysis, respectively. The impact of microcarriers on metabolic parameters was in most cell types rather low. However, lipid bilayer-supported microcarriers induced a decrease in oxygen consumption rate (OCR, indicative for mitochondrial respiration) and extracellular acidification rate (ECAR, indicative for glycolysis) in Vero cells. Additionally, in Vero cells lipid bilayer microcarriers showed a more pronounced association with microtubule filaments than polymer-coated microcarrier. Furthermore, they localized to a perinuclear region and induced nuclei with some deformations at a higher rate than unfunctionalized carriers. This association was reduced through the application of the microtubule polymerization inhibitor nocodazole. Thus, the effect of respective lipid structures as a drug delivery system on cells has to be considered in the context of the respective target cell, but in general can be regarded as rather low.