Ultrathin transparent carbon nanotube/LiMn2O4 and carbon nanotube/MoS2 film electrodes for Li-ion full batteries

Abstract

The increasing demands for wearable devices have significantly facilitated the development of transparent electronics. Serving as key components of fully integrated transparent devices, transparent batteries are urgently needed yet their development is largely hindered by the difficulties of fabricating transparent electrode materials. Here, we successfully designed the transparent cathodes and anodes through combining transparent single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) films with lithium manganate (CNT/LMO) and molybdenum disulfide (CNT/MoS2), respectively. We found that the fabricated cathode and anode composite films exhibit excellent transmittances of 75% and 80%, respectively. Also, the interconnected SWNT networks in the composite films provide an efficient channel for fast electron transport that significantly contribute to their electrochemical performance. Specifically, when employed as battery electrodes, the highly transparent CNT/LMO cathode and CNT/MoS2 anode show initial areal capacities of 13 and 66 μAh cm−2 at current densities of 0.05 and 0.2 mA cm−2, respectively. More impressively, a full cell, which is constructed with transparent CNT/LMO and CNT/MoS2 composite films as electrodes, shows the capacity retention up to 90% after 100 cycles. The demonstration of transparent electrodes in this study provides a promising strategy to realize the fabrication of fully transparent wearable devices.