IISc Researchers have develop a novel ultramicroscopic supercapacitor with enhance energy storage and release capacity, which is fully functional and ready for deployment in any miniaturise system on-chip integration.
Being very smaller and more compact than the existing ones, the supercapacitor develop at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, could potentially be use across a range of energy-storage devices such as streetlights to consumer electronics, electric car batteries and medical devices, as per a study.
Right now, these devices are power by batteries, which tend to lose their store charge over time and, thereby, stored energy, and therefore, have a limited shelf-life.
And, capacitors, while limited in their inability to discharge power in a sustain manner such as powering a mobile phone, are capable of storing electric energy for much longer, owing to their design.
Supercapacitors combine the best of both worlds in that they can store as well as release large amounts of energy and are, so, highly sought-after for next-generation electronic devices, the study publish in the journal ACS Energy Letters.
As per study said, hybrid Field Effect Transistors (FETs) were use in the fabrication of this supercapacitor as charge collectors as oppose to metallic oxide-based electrodes use in existing capacitors, which are limited by their poor electron mobility.
Abha Misra, professor at the Department of Instrumentation and Applied Physics (IAP) and corresponding author of the study Said :
“Using FET as an electrode for supercapacitors is something new for tuning charge in a capacitor,”
Abha Misra and team built these hybrid FETs by alternating few-atoms-thick layers of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) and graphene to increase electron mobility which were then connect to gold contacts.
The use of a solid gel electrolyte use between the two FET electrodes made it a solid-state supercapacitor, which was built on a silicon dioxide/silicon base.
Abha Misra said that the design, integrating the two systems of FET electrodes and the gel electrolyte of varying charge capacities, was the critical part.
Vinod Panwar, one of the lead authors of the study, said that challenges arose in the supercapacitor’s fabrication owing to its microscopic size, thereby, requiring high precision and hand-eye coordination.
After fabrication, the capacitance, or the charge-holding capacity, of the supercapacitor was measure by applying various voltages.
Under certain conditions, the capacitance was found to be enhance by 3000%.
In contrast, an enhancement of only 18% was record in the capacitance of a capacitor made purely from MoS2 without graphene, under the same conditions.
The researchers said that they are planning to explore if a still higher capacitance can be achieve by replacing MoS2 with other materials.
