(192e) Three-Dimensional Core@Shell Nanostructured Array for Microscale Electrochemical Energy Storage

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based autonomous and biomedical devices play an ever increasing role in our society by monitoring the structural health of major civil works, the environmental presence of toxic or explosive compounds, and the physical health of human patients. Integration of robust and high power energy storage devices within these systems is important for reliable MEMS with necessary burst energy for data relay and dense components by reducing bulky external power sources. To overcome the shortcomings of conventional two-dimensional battery and supercapacitor configurations while developing more powerful energy storage devices, we focus on the development of three-dimensional architectures to take advantage of the vertical dimension-height. In this study, we designed a novel architecture composed of branched nanowire arrays, i.e. forest of nanotrees, to further boost electrochemical performance over one-dimensional nanowire arrays, inspired by branched trees with larger surface area to capture more sunlight. The prepared three-dimensional ZnO@MnO₂ core@shell branched nanowire arrays exhibit five times higher areal capacitance, better rate performance and smaller inner resistance than their nanowire array counterparts. These novel three-dimensional architectures offer promising designs for powering microelectronics and other autonomous devices on exceptionally small geometric scales.