On-chip supercapacitor electrode based on polypyrrole deposited into nanoporous Au scaffold

On-chip supercapacitors hold the potential promise for serving as the energy storage units in integrated circuit system, due to their much higher energy density in comparison with conventional dielectric capacitors, high power density and long-term cycling stability. In this study, nanoporous Au (NP-Au) film on-chip was employed as the electrode scaffold to help increase the electrolyte-accessible area for active material. Pseudo-capacitive polypyrrole (PPY) with high theoretical capacitance was deposited into the NP-Au scaffold, to construct the tailored NP-Au/PPY hybrid on-chip electrode with improved areal capacitance. Half cell test in three- electrode system revealed the improved capacitor performance of nanoporous Au supported PPY electrode, compared to the densely packed PPY nanowire film electrode on planer Au substrate (Au/PPY). The areal capacitance of 37 mF/cm2~10 mV/s, 32 mF/cm2~50 mV/s, 28 mF/cm2~100 mV/s, 16 mF/cm2~500 mV/s, were offered by NP-Au/PPY. Also, the cycling performance was enhanced via using NP-Au scaffold. The developed NP-Au/PPY on-chip electrode demonstrated herein paves a feasible pathway to employ dealloying derived porous metal as the scaffold for improving both the energy density and cycling performance for supercapacitor electrodes.