Highly flexible, foldable, and rollable microsupercapacitors on an ultrathin polyimide substrate with high power density

Juan Pu; Xiaohong Wang; Renxiao Xu; Sixing Xu; Kyriakos Komvopoulos

doi:10.1038/s41378-018-0016-3

Highly flexible, foldable, and rollable microsupercapacitors on an ultrathin polyimide substrate with high power density

Microsyst Nanoeng. 2018 Jul 30:4:16. doi: 10.1038/s41378-018-0016-3. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Juan Pu^{1

2

3

4}, Xiaohong Wang^{1

2

3}, Renxiao Xu⁴, Sixing Xu^{1

2

3}, Kyriakos Komvopoulos⁴

Affiliations

¹ 1Department of Microelectronics and Nanoelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 China.
² 2Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 China.
³ 3Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Beijing, 100084 China.
⁴ 4Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA.

Abstract

The design and functionality of extremely flexible, foldable, and rollable microsupercapacitors (MSCs) with in-plane interdigital electrodes that consist of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) networks on an ultrathin polyimide substrate are demonstrated through experiments and finite element simulations. The all-solid-state MSCs can be reversibly bent, folded, and rolled purely elastically without degradation of their electrical performance. The simulation results confirm that the deformation in bent, folded, and rolled MSCs is purely elastic. The high power density (1125 W cm^-3) and small time constant (1 ms) of the present MSCs are comparable to those of aluminum electrolytic capacitors. The MSCs operate at scan rates of up to 1000 V s^-1, are characterized by a volumetric capacitance of 18 F cm^-3 and an energy density of 1.6 mWh cm^-3, and exhibit superior electrochemical stability with 96% capacity retention even after 100,000 charge/discharge cycles. The developed MSCs demonstrate high potential for integration in flexible and wearable electronic systems.