Ultrafast triggered transient energy storage by atomic layer deposition into porous silicon for integrated transient electronics

Advances in Si and SiC Materials for High-Performance Supercapacitors toward Integrated Energy Storage Systems

Silicon (Si), as the second most abundant element on Earth, has been a central platform of modern electronics owing to its low mass density and unique semiconductor properties. From an energy perspective, all-in-one integration of power supply systems onto Si-based functional devices is highly desirable, which inspires significant study on Si-based energy storage. Compared to the well-known Si-anode Li-ion batteries, Si-based supercapacitors possess high power density, long life, and simple working mechanisms, which enables their ease of integration onto a wide range of devices and applications. Besides Si, silicon carbide (SiC), as a physicochemically stable wide-bandgap semiconductor, also attracts research attention as an energy storage material in harsh environments. In this review, a detailed overview of latest advances in materials design, synthesis methods, and performances of Si-based and SiC-based supercapacitors will be provided. Some successful integrated devices, future perspectives, and potential research directions are also highlighted and discussed.

Multifunctional Batteries: Flexible, Transient, and Transparent

The primary task of a battery is to store energy and to power electronic devices. This has hardly changed over the years despite all the progress made in improving their electrochemical performance. In comparison to batteries, electronic devices are continuously equipped with new functions, and they also change their physical appearance, becoming flexible, rollable, stretchable, or maybe transparent or even transient or degradable. Mechanical flexibility makes them attractive for wearable electronics or for electronic paper; transparency is desired for transparent screens or smart windows, and degradability or transient properties have the potential to reduce electronic waste. For fully integrated and self-sufficient systems, these devices have to be powered by batteries with similar physical characteristics. To make the currently used rigid and heavy batteries flexible, transparent, and degradable, the whole battery architecture including active materials, current collectors, electrolyte/separator, and packaging has to be redesigned. This requires a fundamental paradigm change in battery research, moving away from exclusively addressing the electrochemical aspects toward an interdisciplinary approach involving chemists, materials scientists, and engineers. This Outlook provides an overview of the different activities in the field of flexible, transient, and transparent batteries with a focus on the challenges that have to be faced toward the development of such multifunctional energy storage devices.

Bioresorbable Materials on the Rise: From Electronic Components and Physical Sensors to In Vivo Monitoring Systems

Over the last decade, scientists have dreamed about the development of a bioresorbable technology that exploits a new class of electrical, optical, and sensing components able to operate in physiological conditions for a prescribed time and then disappear, being made of materials that fully dissolve in vivo with biologically benign byproducts upon external stimulation. The final goal is to engineer these components into transient implantable systems that directly interact with organs, tissues, and biofluids in real-time, retrieve clinical parameters, and provide therapeutic actions tailored to the disease and patient clinical evolution, and then biodegrade without the need for device-retrieving surgery that may cause tissue lesion or infection. Here, the major results achieved in bioresorbable technology are critically reviewed, with a bottom-up approach that starts from a rational analysis of dissolution chemistry and kinetics, and biocompatibility of bioresorbable materials, then moves to in vivo performance and stability of electrical and optical bioresorbable components, and eventually focuses on the integration of such components into bioresorbable systems for clinically relevant applications. Finally, the technology readiness levels (TRLs) achieved for the different bioresorbable devices and systems are assessed, hence the open challenges are analyzed and future directions for advancing the technology are envisaged.

Structural, optical and terahertz properties of graphene-mesoporous silicon nanocomposites

We investigate the structural, optical and terahertz properties of graphene-mesoporous silicon nanocomposites using Raman, terahertz time-domain and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The nanocomposites consist of a free-standing mesoporous silicon membrane with its external and pore surfaces coated with few-layer graphene. Results show a stabilization of the porous silicon morphology by the graphene coating. The terahertz refractive index and absorption coefficient were found to increase with graphene deposition temperature. Four bands in the 1.79-2.2 eV range emerge from the PL spectra of the nanocomposites. The broad bands centered at 1.79 eV and 1.96 eV were demonstrated to originate from Si nanocrystallites of different sizes. The narrower bands at 2.11 eV and 2.14 eV could be related to a thin SiC film at the Si/C interface.

Q-Carbon: A New Carbon Allotrope with a Low Degree of s-p Orbital Hybridization and Its Nucleation Lithiation Process in Lithium-Ion Batteries

A novel metallic carbon allotrope, Q-carbon, was discovered using first-principles calculations. The named Q-carbon possessed a three-dimensional (3D) cage structure formed by carbon atoms with three ligands. The energy distribution of electrons in different orbitals revealed that Q-carbon has a low degree of s-p orbital hybridization. The calculated Li⁺ binding energies suggested Li⁺ aggregation inside Q-carbon during lithiation. As a result, a Li₈C₃₂ phase was formed and gradually expanded in Q-carbon, implying a typical two-phase transition. This allowed Q-carbon to have a constant theoretical voltage of 0.40 V, which effectively inhibited Li dendrite formation. A stable Li₈C₃₂/C₃₂ two-phase interface was confirmed by stress-strain analysis, and a calculated Li⁺ diffusion barrier of ∼0.50 eV ensured effective Li⁺ diffusion along a 3D pathway. This study was of great significance for the understanding of two-phase transition of Li⁺ storage materials and provided a new insight into the design of new carbon materials for energy storage applications.

Materials, Processes, and Facile Manufacturing for Bioresorbable Electronics: A Review

Bioresorbable electronics refer to a new class of advanced electronics that can completely dissolve or disintegrate with environmentally and biologically benign byproducts in water and biofluids. They have provided a solution to the growing electronic waste problem with applications in temporary usage of electronics such as implantable devices and environmental sensors. Bioresorbable materials such as biodegradable polymers, dissolvable conductors, semiconductors, and dielectrics are extensively studied, enabling massive progress of bioresorbable electronic devices. Processing and patterning of these materials are predominantly relying on vacuum-based fabrication methods so far. However, for the purpose of commercialization, nonvacuum, low-cost, and facile manufacturing/printing approaches are the need of the hour. Bioresorbable electronic materials are generally more chemically reactive than conventional electronic materials, which require particular attention in developing the low-cost manufacturing processes in ambient environment. This review focuses on material reactivity, ink availability, printability, and process compatibility for facile manufacturing of bioresorbable electronics.

Composites Formed from Thermoresponsive Polymers and Conductive Nanowires for Transient Electronic Systems

The disintegration of transient electronic systems after a preprogrammed time or a particular stimulus (e.g., water, light, or temperature) is fundamentally linked to the properties and behavior of the materials used for their construction. Herein, we demonstrate that polymers exhibiting lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior can work as thermoresponsive substrates for circuitry and that these materials can be coupled with conductive nanowires to form a transient electronics platform with unique, irreversible temperature-responsive behavior. The transient systems formed from composites of LCST polymers and conductive nanowires exhibit stable electrical performance in solution (T_solution > LCST) for over 24 h until a cooling stimulus triggers a rapid (within 5 min) and gigantic (3-4 orders of magnitude) transition in electrical conductance due to polymer dissolution. Using a parylene mask, we are able to fabricate thermoresponsive electrical components, such as conductive traces and parallel-plate capacitors, demonstrating the versatility of this material and patterning technique. With this unique stimulus-responsive transient system and polymers with LCSTs above room temperature (e.g., poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), methyl cellulose), we have developed a platform in which a circuit requires a source of heat to remain viable and is destroyed and vanishes once this heat source is lost.

Low-Cost Manufacturing of Bioresorbable Conductors by Evaporation-Condensation-Mediated Laser Printing and Sintering of Zn Nanoparticles

Currently, bioresorbable electronic devices are predominantly fabricated by complex and expensive vacuum-based integrated circuit (IC) processes. Here, a low-cost manufacturing approach for bioresorbable conductors on bioresorbable polymer substrates by evaporation-condensation-mediated laser printing and sintering of Zn nanoparticle is reported. Laser sintering of Zn nanoparticles has been technically difficult due to the surface oxide on nanoparticles. To circumvent the surface oxide, a novel approach is discovered to print and sinter Zn nanoparticle facilitated by evaporation-condensation in confined domains. The printing process can be performed on low-temperature substrates in ambient environment allowing easy integration on a roll-to-roll platform for economical manufacturing of bioresorbable electronics. The fabricated Zn conductors show excellent electrical conductivity (≈1.124 × 10⁶ S m^-1 ), mechanical durability, and water dissolvability. Successful demonstration of strain gauges confirms the potential application in various environmentally friendly sensors and circuits.

Tunable Mechanochemistry of Lithium Battery Electrodes

The interplay between mechanical strains and battery electrochemistry, or the tunable mechanochemistry of batteries, remains an emerging research area with limited experimental progress. In this report, we demonstrate how elastic strains applied to vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅), a widely studied cathode material for Li-ion batteries, can modulate the kinetics and energetics of lithium-ion intercalation. We utilize atomic layer deposition to coat V₂O₅ materials onto the surface of a shapememory superelastic NiTi alloy, which allows electrochemical assessment at a fixed and measurable level of elastic strain imposed on the V₂O₅, with strain state assessed through Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Our results indicate modulation of electrochemical intercalation potentials by ∼40 mV and an increase of the diffusion coefficient of lithium ions by up to 2.5-times with elastic prestrains of <2% imposed on the V₂O₅. These results are supported by density functional theory calculations and demonstrate how mechanics of nanomaterials can be used as a precise tool to strain engineer the electrochemical energy storage performance of battery materials.

Polysulfide Anchoring Mechanism Revealed by Atomic Layer Deposition of V2O5 and Sulfur-Filled Carbon Nanotubes for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries

Despite the promise of surface engineering to address the challenge of polysulfide shuttling in sulfur-carbon composite cathodes, melt infiltration techniques limit mechanistic studies correlating engineered surfaces and polysulfide anchoring. Here, we present a controlled experimental demonstration of polysulfide anchoring using vapor phase isothermal processing to fill the interior of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) after assembly into binder-free electrodes and atomic layer deposition (ALD) coating of polar V₂O₅ anchoring layers on the CNT surfaces. The ultrathin submonolayer V₂O₅ coating on the CNT exterior surface balances the adverse effect of polysulfide shuttling with the necessity for high sulfur utilization due to binding sites near the conductive CNT surface. The sulfur loaded into the CNT interior provides a spatially separated control volume enabling high sulfur loading with direct sulfur-CNT electrical contact for efficient sulfur conversion. By controlling ALD coating thickness, high initial discharge capacity of 1209 mAh/g_S at 0.1 C and exceptional cycling at 0.2 C with 87% capacity retention after 100 cycles and 73% at 450 cycles is achieved and correlated to an optimal V₂O₅ anchoring layer thickness. This provides experimental evidence that surface engineering approaches can be effective to overcome polysulfide shuttling by controlled design of molecular-scale building blocks for efficient binder free lithium sulfur battery cathodes.

Nanostructured 3D-porous graphene hydrogel based Ti/Sb-SnO2-Gr electrode with enhanced electrocatalytic activity

Nanostructured highly porous 3D-Ti/Sb-SnO₂-Gr electrode, based on 3D porous graphene hydrogel was fabricated via a fast-evaporation technique through layer by layer (LBL) deposition. The 3D pores are uniformly distributed on the high fidelity of substrate with pore sizes of 7-12 nm, as confirmed by SEM analysis. Compared to Ti/Sb-SnO₂ electrode, the fabricated 3D porous electrode possesses high oxygen evolution potential (2.40 V), smaller charge transfer resistance (29.40 Ω cm^-2), higher porosity (0.90), enhanced roughness factor (181), and larger voltammetric charge value (57.4 mC cm^-2). Electrocatalytic oxidation of Rhodamine B (RhB) was employed to evaluate the efficiency of the fabricated 3D-Ti/Sb-SnO₂-Gr anode. The results show that the electrochemical reaction follows pseudo first order kinetics with rate constant (k) value of 4.93 × 10^-2 min^-1, which is about 3.91 times higher compared to flat Ti/Sb-SnO₂. The fabricated electrode demonstrates better stability and low specific energy consumption signifying its potential usage in electrocatalysis.

The Application of a Small-Molecule-Based Ternary Memory Device in Transient Thermal-Probing Electronics

A small-molecule-based ternary memory device is used in transient thermal-probing electronics. The PYAE-based memory device is featured with three electrical transition signals ("0," "1," and "2"), while the heated PYAE-based device is only characterized by two electrical transition signals ("1" and "2"). The organic layer of the used devices can be recovered and reused.