3-Dimensional Graphene Carbon Nanotube Carpet-Based Microsupercapacitors with High Electrochemical Performance

James M. Tour, Jian Lin.

The development of nanostructured-capacitive structures has been an active area of research because they would allow us to have smaller and flexible electronics, breaking the limit of actual technics.

In this paper it’s shown how 3D grapheme/CNT carpets can work has supercapacitors at good frequencies and altern current, mainly used for line filtering applications. With a frecuency response comparable to the aluminum electrolytic capacitors but with higher current density.

The microcapacitor was fabricated first with photolithography over silicon, then nickel was added to the marked substrate, it acts as both the current collector and the catalyst to grow the graphene.

The graphene was synthesized over the Ni electrodes by CVD at 800º C.After, the CNT carpets were synthesized from the patterned Fe/Al₂O₃/at was first deposited by CVD over the graphene layer. 

The capacitor propierties were teasted with a potensiostat in a two-electrode cell configuration. They used 1M Na₂SO₄ aqueous electrolyte to measure.

They tested the frecuency response specific areal capacitances and found an excellent response in frequencies over 120Hz.

The potential application of this capacitors can go from smaller chargers, noise filters of different electronic circuits and  even signal filtering in sensors mounted over mobile electronics.