One-Step Scalable Fabrication of Graphene-Integrated Micro-Supercapacitors with Remarkable Flexibility and Exceptional Performance Uniformity

Abstract

The rapid development of miniature electronics has accelerated the demand for simplified and scalable production of micro-supercapacitors (MSCs); however, the preparation of active materials, patterning microelectrodes, and subsequent modular integration of the reported MSCs are normally separated and are involved in multiple complex steps. Herein, a one-step, cost-effective strategy for fast and scalable fabrication of patterned laser-induced graphene (LIG) for all-solid-state planar integrated MSCs (LIG-MSCs) with various form factors of designable shape, exceptional flexibility, performance uniformity, superior modularization, and high-temperature stability is demonstrated. Notably, using the conductive and porous LIG patterns composed of randomly stacked graphene nanosheets simultaneously acting as both microelectrodes and interconnects, the resulting LIG-MSCs represent typical electrical double capacitive behavior, having an impressive areal capacitance of 0.62 mF cm−2 and long-term stability without capacitance degeneration after 10 000 cycles. Furthermore, LIG-MSCs display exceptional mechanical flexibility and adjustable voltage and capacitance output through arbitrary arrangement of cells connected in series and in parallel, indicative of exceptional performance customization. Moreover, all-solid-state LIG-MSCs working at ionogel electrolyte exhibit highly stable performance even at high temperature of 100 °C, with 90% capacitance retention over 3000 cycles, suggestive of outstanding reliability. Therefore, the LIG-MSCs offer tremendous opportunities for miniature power source-integrated microelectronics.