Direct laser writing of planar and stretchable supercapacitors based on a graphene oxide and manganese dioxide nanoparticle composite on a paper substrate

Abstract

Paper-based supercapacitors (P-SCs) exhibit superior electrochemical performance owing to the flexibility and unique surface properties of paper substrates. Currently, most P-SCs adopt a sandwich structure that is limited by electrode fabrication methods. However, the development of planar paper-based devices is crucial to satisfy the tremendous demand for wearable electronics. Herein, based on the mechanism of interaction between the laser and material, we used direct laser writing (DLW) techniques to fabricate in-plane P-SCs based on graphene oxide (GO) and manganese dioxide (MnO2) composite-covered paper substrates. Owing to the in-plane device structure and pseudocapacitive MnO2, the acquired rGO-MnO2-based planar P-SCs possessed a much higher specific capacitance value (17.7 mF/cm2) than that based on sandwich-structured reduced GO (rGO) (1.71 mF/cm2). In addition, three in-series integrated devices can be easily achieved via the DLW fabrication method, which shows potential for practical applications such as powering a light emitting diode. In addition, by carefully designing the paper substrate structure, the paper-based device exhibited excellent stretching stability. A specific capacitance retention of 86.8% remained after 5000 stretch cycles. Therefore, this study provides valuable insights into the design and fabrication of wearable paper-based electronics.