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Fabricating ion-conducting channel in SU-8 matrix for high-performance patternable polymer electrolytes

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Abstract

Advances in electrochemical energy storage technologies drive the need for battery safety performance and miniaturization, which calls for the easily processable polymer electrolytes suitable for on-chip microbattery technology. However, the low ionic conductivity of polymer electrolytes and poor-patternable capabilities hinder their application in microdevices. Herein, we modified SU-8, as the matrix material, by poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) with lithium salts to obtain a patternable lithium-ion polymer electrolyte. Due to the highly amorphous state and more Li-ion transport pathways through blending effect and the increase in number of epoxides, the ionic conductivity of achieved sample is increased by an order of magnitude to 2.9 × 10−4 S·cm−1 in comparison with the SU-8 sample at 50 °C. The modified SU-8 exhibits good thermal stability (> 150 °C), mechanical properties (elastic modulus of 1.52 GPa), as well as an electrochemical window of 4.3 V. Half-cell and microdevice were fabricated and tested to verify the possibility of the micro-sized on-chip battery. All of these results demonstrate a promising strategy for the integration of on-chip batteries with microelectronics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2020YFA0715000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51802239, 51832004), Foshan Xianhu Laboratory of the Advanced Energy Science and Technology Guangdong Laboratory (Nos. XHT2020-005, XHT2020-003), and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology (No. CY202031).

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  1. Tianzhao Li and Xuelei Pan contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Tianzhao Li, Xuelei Pan, Zhongzhuo Yang, Fang Liu, Kesong Yu, Lin Xu & Liqiang Mai

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  1. Tianzhao Li
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  2. Xuelei Pan
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Correspondence to Lin Xu or Liqiang Mai.

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Li, T., Pan, X., Yang, Z. et al. Fabricating ion-conducting channel in SU-8 matrix for high-performance patternable polymer electrolytes. Nano Res. 16, 496–502 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4751-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4751-2

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