Flexible micro-supercapacitors with high energy density from simple transfer of photoresist-derived porous carbon electrodes

Flexible integrated micro-scale energy storage has attracted increasing research interest due to numerous compelling device applications. This paper presents a facile and scalable technique to fabricate a flexible high surface area carbon based micro-supercapacitor via pyrolysis of a commercial photoresist and transfer to a flexible substrate. Cyclic voltammetry, galvanostatic charge/discharge, and AC impedance spectroscopy are used to characterize the fabricated devices, which show near ideal electrochemical behavior and retention of initial electrochemical performance after 300 bending cycles. The devices exhibit maximum energy density of 1 mWh cm−3 in aqueous electrolyte, which compares favorably to state-of-the-art flexible and rigid carbon-based micro-supercapacitor devices.