Taper silicon nano-scaffold regulated compact integration of 1D nanocarbons for improved on-chip supercapacitor

On-chip supercapacitors (SCs) hold the great promise as energy storage components integrated with silicon-based electronics. The target for improving the energy density is proposed to make SCs more competitive relative to batteries for on-chip applications. In this study, a novel approach is presented to fabricate a new class high energy SC electrode via compact integration of fullerene-like carbon decorated carbon nanotubes (FC-CNTs) regulated by the employed dry etched silicon taper nanorod (Si-TNR) scaffold. The involved dry reactive ion etching (RIE), electron-beam deposition (EBD), and atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition (APCVD) processing steps are fully compatible with the manufacturing techniques for silicon microelectronics, emphasizing the potential for practical mass production. The enhanced mass loading of carbon active material in specific footprint area (3 mg cm(-2)) via compact integration, the design on highly interconnected FC-CNT network for excellent electronic transport property, as well as the meso-macro porous structure for rapid ion transportation, synergistically enable a remarkable areal capacitance without compromising the capability of rapid energy storage (192 mF cm(-2) at 1 mV s(-1), 123 mF cm(-2) at 1000 mV s(-1)), representing the performance beyond the current state-of-the-art carbon based on-chip SCs.