Abstract
Solar energy storage is an emerging technology which can promote the solar energy as the primary source of electricity. Recent development of laser scribed graphene electrodes exhibiting a high electrical conductivity have enabled a green technology platform for supercapacitor-based energy storage, resulting in cost-effective, environment-friendly features, and consequent readiness for on-chip integration. Due to the limitation of the ion-accessible active porous surface area, the energy densities of these supercapacitors are restricted below ~3 × 10−3 Whcm−3. In this paper, we demonstrate a new design of biomimetic laser scribed graphene electrodes for solar energy storage, which embraces the structure of Fern leaves characterized by the geometric family of space filling curves of fractals. This new conceptual design removes the limit of the conventional planar supercapacitors by significantly increasing the ratio of active surface area to volume of the new electrodes and reducing the electrolyte ionic path. The attained energy density is thus significantly increased to ~10−1 Whcm−3- more than 30 times higher than that achievable by the planar electrodes with ~95% coulombic efficiency of the solar energy storage. The energy storages with these novel electrodes open the prospects of efficient self-powered and solar-powered wearable, flexible and portable applications.
Highlights
Solar energy storage is an emerging technology which can promote the solar energy as the primary source of electricity
The development of on-chip solar energy storage platforms[5] integrated with laser scribed graphene micro-supercapacitors (LSG-MSCs) with interdigited electrodes are promising for a broad range of applications in micro[6] and bio-wearable electronics[7], self-powered nano-piezo-electronics[8,9] as well as future solar-powered applications if the energy density of MSCs can reach the level equivalent to lithium ion batteries[10]
We propose a new design concept of LSG-MSCs using bioinspired electrodes based on the ingenious fractal structures[17] with broadened aspects for on-chip energy storage integrated thin-film amorphous silicon solar cells
Summary
Solar energy storage is an emerging technology which can promote the solar energy as the primary source of electricity. We calculated the ratio of active surface area to volume (SA: V) of the different electrode designs (Fig. 1(g)) by considering the pore size and thickness, t with widths d1 and d2 of the LSG films.
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