Printing flexible on-chip micro-supercapacitors

This chapter summarizes the recent progress of producing on-chip microsupercapacitors (MSCs) using printing techniques. On-chip MSCs are composed of substrate, active electrodes (anode and cathode), current collector, and electrolyte. The chapter provides details on different printable materials, including printable electrode materials, printable current collectors, and printable electrolytes. Printing techniques to on-chip MSCs have two great features compared with other techniques. The first one is that, for printing techniques, the functional materials are added layer by layer on substrate in a very controllable way, providing an environmentally friendly process with quite low energy consumption and little material waste and pollution. The second feature is that the printed on-chip MSCs are independent of the substrate materials, thus the printing method enables to produce devices on almost any substrate, including flexible or stretchable substrates. The chapter illustrates different printing techniques, such as inkjet printing, spray printing, screen printing, and three-dimensional printing.