Microstructural and supercapacitive properties of reactive magnetron co-sputtered Mo3N2 electrodes: Effects of Cu doping

In this work, supercapacitive properties of un-doped and Cu doped Mo3N2 thin films developed by reactive magnetron co-sputtering technique are reported. X-ray diffraction (XRD) investigation confirmed the cubic phase of Mo3N2 and the addition of Cu to Mo3N2 did not change the crystal structure. The presence of Cu in this Mo3N2 was further confirmed by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDX). The electrochemical supercapacitive performance of the needle/cone shaped thin film electrodes were investigated using cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge techniques. The measurements showed an areal capacitance of 173.4 mF cm−2 for the un-doped and 619.5 mF cm−2 for the Cu doped Mo3N2 at a scan rate of 5 mV s−1 in 1 M KOH and the excellent cycling stability of 80% capacitance retention over 2000 cycles. The results suggested that the prepared Mo3N2 based electrodes are excellent candidate materials for high-performance supercapacitors.