Micromachined Planar Supercapacitor with Interdigital Buckypaper Electrodes

• Main Authors: Yun-Ting Chen, Cheng-Wen Ma, Chia-Ming Chang, Yao-Joe Yang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-05-01
• Series: Micromachines
• Subjects: carbon nanotube (CNT); micro-supercapacitor (micro-SC); patterned buckypaper; vacuum filtration
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/9/5/242

In this work, a flexible micro-supercapacitor with interdigital planar buckypaper electrodes is presented. A simple fabrication process involving vacuum filtration method and SU-8 molding techniques is proposed to fabricate in-plane interdigital buckypaper electrodes on a membrane filter substrate. The proposed process exhibits excellent flexibility for future integration of the micro-supercapacitors (micro-SC) with other electronic components. The device’s maximum specific capacitance measured using cyclic voltammetry was 107.27 mF/cm2 at a scan rate of 20 mV/s. The electrochemical stability was investigated by measuring the performance of charge-discharge at different discharge rates. Devices with different buckypaper electrode thicknesses were also fabricated and measured. The specific capacitance of the proposed device increased linearly with the buckypaper electrode thickness. The measured leakage current was approximately 9.95 µA after 3600 s. The device exhibited high cycle stability, with 96.59% specific capacitance retention after 1000 cycles. A Nyquist plot of the micro-SC was also obtained by measuring the impedances with frequencies from 1 Hz to 50 kHz; it indicated that the equivalent series resistance value was approximately 18 Ω.