Stamp-assisted printing of nanotextured electrodes for high-performance flexible planar micro-supercapacitors

Abstract

We report a stamp-assisted printing strategy to achieve interdigital electrodes with well-defined geometry and distinct nanotexture for flexible planar micro-supercapacitors (MSCs). Insulating ink pattern is imprinted on conductive glass with the assistance of stamp, serving as a mold for selective electroplating of Ni finger pattern. Combining this process with pattern transfer and electrodeposition procedures, well-defined interdigital Ni/MnO2 electrodes are constructed on flexible Kapton in an extremely simple, efficient and low-cost route without the use of complicated and costly microfabrication technologies. Furthermore, the as-formed Ni electrode fingers exhibit distinct nanotextured surface morphology, endowing the resultant Ni/MnO2 MSCs with high areal capacitance (4.15 mF cm−2), remarkably higher than that of texture-free Ni/MnO2 MSCs. More importantly, owing to the adoption of stamp-assisted printing technique, MSCs can be seamlessly integrated in series and parallel on one piece of chip without any external wires, well fulfilling the requirement of power suppliers with high voltage and large capacitance output for wearable electronics. This work opens up a feasible route for the fabrication and integration of high-performance flexible planar MSCs, and may find vast applications in relevant fields, such as lithium batteries, nanogenerators and sensors.