Kirigami-inspired, highly stretchable micro-supercapacitor patches fabricated by laser conversion and cutting

Renxiao Xu,Geoffrey Ding,Brandon Griffin,Michael Whitmeyer,Xining Zang,Aaron Hung,Lily Zheng,Jack Melcher,Anton Zverev,Lauren Irie,Liwei Lin,Caiwei Shen,Mohan Sanghadasa,Liangjie Ren

doi:10.1038/s41378-018-0036-z

Abstract

The recent developments in material sciences and rational structural designs have advanced the field of compliant and deformable electronics systems. However, many of these systems are limited in either overall stretchability or areal coverage of functional components. Here, we design a construct inspired by Kirigami for highly deformable micro-supercapacitor patches with high areal coverages of electrode and electrolyte materials. These patches can be fabricated in simple and efficient steps by laser-assisted graphitic conversion and cutting. Because the Kirigami cuts significantly increase structural compliance, segments in the patches can buckle, rotate, bend and twist to accommodate large overall deformations with only a small strain (<3%) in active electrode areas. Electrochemical testing results have proved that electrical and electrochemical performances are preserved under large deformation, with less than 2% change in capacitance when the patch is elongated to 382.5% of its initial length. The high design flexibility can enable various types of electrical connections among an array of supercapacitors residing in one patch, by using different Kirigami designs.

Highlights

In recent years, stretchable electronics systems have drawn widespread attentions in research and commercialization[1,2,3,4,5]
The areal coverage of functional components η can be calculated as η=Li/(Li+Ls), and the system-level stretchability εsys is related to the stretchability of interconnects εint by εsys 1⁄4 εint Á ð1 À ηÞ: ð1Þ
When the injected heat is insufficient for the photothermal graphitic conversion process to take place (LHD less than roughly 0.05 J/mm, as shown by blue dots in Fig. 2a and in Supplementary Figure S1a), no obvious change on the polyimide film can be observed

Summary

Introduction

Stretchable electronics systems have drawn widespread attentions in research and commercialization[1,2,3,4,5]. One commonly used construct is the “Island-Bridge” model (Fig. 1a), where rigid, functional electronic components (i.e., the “islands”) with side length Li are separated by spacing Ls among them, and joined by compliant, deformable interconnects (i.e., the “bridges”) to sustain uniaxial stretching deformation by out-of-plane or in-plane unraveling[3,6,7,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The areal coverage of functional components η can be calculated as η=Li/(Li+Ls), and the system-level stretchability εsys (defined as the maximum elongation before electronic or mechanical failure) is related to the stretchability of interconnects εint by εsys 1⁄4 εint Á ð1 À ηÞ: ð1Þ

Methods

Results

Conclusion