Drying-Mediated Self-Assembly of Graphene for Inkjet Printing of High-Rate Micro-supercapacitors

Scalable fabrication of high-rate micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) is highly desired for on-chip integration of energy storage components. By virtue of the special self-assembly behavior of 2D materials during drying thin films of their liquid dispersion, a new inkjet printing technique of passivated graphene micro-flakes is developed to directly print MSCs with 3D networked porous microstructure. The presence of macroscale through-thickness pores provides fast ion transport pathways and improves the rate capability of the devices even with solid-state electrolytes. During multiple-pass printing, the porous microstructure effectively absorbs the successively printed inks, allowing full printing of 3D structured MSCs comprising multiple vertically stacked cycles of current collectors, electrodes, and sold-state electrolytes. The all-solid-state heterogeneous 3D MSCs exhibit excellent vertical scalability and high areal energy density and power density, evidently outperforming the MSCs fabricated through general printing techniques.