Monolithic Carbide-Derived Carbon Films for Micro-Supercapacitors

TLDR

Micro‑capacitors can store small amounts of charge and charge rapidly, making them useful for power recovery in hybrid vehicles, but until recently they were not competitive for very low power; monolithic carbide‑derived carbon films have shown promise in overcoming this limitation. The study aims to integrate these micro‑capacitors into electronics to enable autonomous sensors and implantable devices. The authors fabricate monolithic carbon films with sufficiently large pores for electrolyte transport using a chip‑compatible processing technique. The feasibility of these micro‑capacitors for such applications was demonstrated.

Abstract

Microcapacitors for Manufacture Capacitors can store small amounts of charge, and as they can charge and discharge quickly, they work well with batteries for recovering power, such as in regenerative braking in hybrid cars. For very small power requirements, capacitors have not been competitive with microbatteries, but using monolithic carbon films to store the charge, Chmiola et al. (p. 480 ) demonstrate the feasibility of such applications. The small pores in the carbon films are sufficiently large to allow electrolyte transport and can be made using a processing technique compatible with current chip manufacturing. Such microcapacitors can thus be integrated with electronics to make autonomous sensors or implantable devices.