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Transparent, flexible, and high-performance supercapacitor based on ultrafine nickel cobaltite nanospheres

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Abstract

There has been growing interest in transparent and flexible electronic devices such as wrist watch, cell phone, and so on. These devices need the power sources which also have transparent and flexible features. Here, we demonstrate a transparent and flexible energy storage device with outstanding electrochemical performance, high energy density, and super-long life based on ultrafine NiCo2O4 nanospheres which are synthesized by an innovative method concerning laser ablation in liquid and hydrothermal process. The ultrafine NiCo2O4 nanospheres provide high electrochemical activity and the synthesized colloidal solution is suitable for transparent devices. The transparent and flexible device shows a high specific capacitance of 299.7 F/g at the scan rate of 1 mV/s and a long cycling life of 90.4% retention rate after 10,000 cycles at a scan rate of 10 mV/s, which is superior to that of previously reported transparent and flexible energy storage device. In addition, an optical transmittance up to 55% at the wavelength of 550 nm is obtained, and the bending test shows that the bending angle makes no difference to the specific capacitance of the device. In addition, it shows an outstanding energy density of 10.41 Wh/kg. The integrated electrochemical performances of the device are good based on NiCo2O4 nanospheres. These findings make the ultrafine NiCo2O4 nanospheres being promising electrode materials for transparent and flexible energy storage devices.

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Acknowledgements

The National Basic Research Program of China (2014CB931700) and State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies supported this work. The authors are grateful to Prof. Z.K. Tang of the State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies of Sun Yat-sen University for Au film deposition.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Nanotechnology Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Physics, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China

    Xinyue Liu, Jianxing Wang & Guowei Yang

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  1. Xinyue Liu
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  2. Jianxing Wang
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Correspondence to Guowei Yang.

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Liu, X., Wang, J. & Yang, G. Transparent, flexible, and high-performance supercapacitor based on ultrafine nickel cobaltite nanospheres. Appl. Phys. A 123, 469 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-017-1085-0

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