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DOI: 10.1109/JMEMS.2017.2723018

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JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
A Review of On-Chip Micro Supercapacitors
for Integrated Self-Powering Systems
Caiwei Shen, Sixing Xu, Yingxi Xie, Mohan Sanghadasa, Xiaohong Wang, Senior Member, IEEE, and Liwei Lin
Abstract— Miniaturized self-powering systems that integrate
both energy harvesters and energy storage units as the
power sources are essential to realize maintenance-free wireless
sensor networks, implantable medical devices, and active radio
frequency identification systems. On-chip micro supercapaci-
tors (MSCs) are promising candidates for energy storage in such
systems by providing high power densities, fast charge/discharge
rates, and long cycle life. Researchers have been improving the
performances, especially energy and power densities, of MSCs
in recent years. This paper reviews the fundamental work-
ing mechanisms and design considerations of on-chip MSCs
with special emphasis on the advantages of 3-D configurations.
Typical fabrication methods are summarized, and their effects
on the device performance and system integration are analyzed.
In particular, the power generation of micro energy harvesters
and the power consumption of typical wireless micro systems
are surveyed, providing the basic and targeting performance
requirements of future MSCs that can be integrated with
them. [2017-0069]
Index Terms— On-chip micro supercapacitor,
dimensional configuration, self-powering system.
I. I NTRODUCTION
W IRELESSLY operating microelectronics, such as wire-
less sensor networks (WSN), implantable medical
devices, and active radio frequency identification (RFID) sys-
tems, have important usages in the environmental, medical,
and industrial monitoring applications. To further expand their
applications and to reduce the cost of replacing batteries
(current power sources), it is desirable to make these systems
self-powered and maintenance-free [1]–[3]. Self-powering
systems harvest energy from solar, thermal, or mechanical
Manuscript received March 27, 2017; revised June 8, 2017; accepted
June 29, 2017. This work was supported in part by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under Grant 61531166006, in part by the
973 Program of China under Grant 2015CB352106, in part by the 863 Pro-
gram of China under Grant 2015AA043502, and in part by the Berkeley
Sensor and Actuator Center, an NSF/Industry/University Collaborative
Research Center for MEMS and NEMS. Subject Editor G. Stemme.
(Caiwei Shen and Sixing Xu contributed equally to this work.) (Corresponding
authors: Xiaohong Wang; Liwei Lin.)
C. Shen, Y. Xie, and L. Lin are with the Mechanical Engineering Depart-
ment, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA (e-mail:
shencw10@berkeley.edu; yingxixie@berkeley.edu; lwlin@berkeley.edu).
S. Xu and X. Wang are with the Tsinghua National Laboratory for
Information Science and Technology, Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua
University, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: xusx15@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn;
wxh-ime@tsinghua.edu.cn).
M. Sanghadasa is with the Aviation and Missile Research, Development,
and Engineering Center, U.S. Army, Redstone Arsenal, AL 35898 USA
(e-mail: mfmohan.sanghadasa.civ@mail.mil).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JMEMS.2017.2723018
1057-7157 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
resources from the environment and convert them into electric-
ity but these resources are usually unstable or intermittent. For
example, solar power is highly dependent on the weather and
the time of the day and mechanical movement power can occur
occasionally at different frequencies based on the surrounding
settings. On the other hand, sensors, processors, transmitters,
and other electronics are not necessary to work continuously
as modern electronics can be frequently switched between
stand-by and active modes. As a result, energy storage devices
are needed to store surplus energy generated from the energy
harvesters when there are available resources and deliver the
power on-demand when there are no or not enough energy
generation sources [4]–[7]. Electrochemical supercapacitors,
as one of the typical energy storage devices, have great
advantages over rechargeable batteries in such applications,
because they have much longer cycle life which is equivalent
three to longer service time, and much higher power density for
higher efficiency of the whole power system [4], [5], [8].
Supercapacitors are electrochemical devices that store
energy based on the electrochemical double layer (EDL) effect
and/or pseudo capacitance effect [8], [9]. EDL capacitors
use electrodes with high surface area to store static charges
on the electrode-electrolyte interface. Typical EDL electrode
materials are nanostructured carbons, such as activated car-
bon, carbon nanotubes and graphene. Pseudo capacitors,
on the other hand, use fast and reversible redox reactions
on or near the electrode surface to store charges. Typical
pseudo-capacitive electrodes are transition metal oxides and
conducting polymers. While commercial supercapacitors have
been used to replace or complement batteries in various macro-
scale applications [7], [10], researchers have been developing
new materials and techniques to fabricate on-chip micro super-
capacitors for micro-scale energy storages [4]–[6], [11].
Micro supercapacitors (MSCs) are more than smaller
devices scaled down from the macro-sized ones as specific
requirements are needed for their various applications [4],
[5], [12]. First, it is desirable for the MSCs to be integrated
with active micro systems such that the size and fabrication
complexity of the whole system can be greatly reduced. For
example, it is beneficial if the fabrication process is compatible
with that of micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) for
easy process integration. Second, three-dimensional archi-
tectures different from those of macro-scale supercapacitors
should be developed and optimized to improve their perfor-
mances with the constraint of limited foot-print areas. Third,
areal or volumetric performance of the electrode materials is
of more importance than the weight considerations as these
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2 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Fig. 1. Schematics of the working principles of four types of capacitors: (a) parallel-plate capacitor, (b) electrolytic capacitor, (c) EDL capacitor, and
(d) pseudo capacitor. EDL capacitor and pseudo capacitor are called supercapacitors because they have much larger capacitance than the other capacitors.
systems have small sizes. In short, specific electrode materials
and architectures based on compatible fabrication processes
with the active devices should be established to meet the
particular requirements of different applications of MSCs.
This review focuses on on-chip MSCs that are compatible
and integrateable with MEMS. First, the basic working mecha-
nisms and design considerations of MSCs will be analyzed by
using the equivalent circuit model. Second, different fabrica-
tion methods and the performances of MSCs will be discussed.
Next, the power generation of energy harvesters and power
consumption of typical commercial sensor nodes are surveyed
to provide the targeting performances for future MSCs.
II. W ORKING M ECHANISMS AND D ESIGN
OF M ICRO S UPERCAPACITORS
A. Working Mechanisms
Supercapacitors differ from conventional capacitors by
their charge storage mechanisms. Four types of capacitors,
including parallel-plate capacitor, electrolytic capacitor,
EDL capacitor, and pseudo capacitor are illustrated in figure 1.
A parallel-plate capacitor (figure 1a) is composed of two metal
plates on which static charges are stored with a dielectric layer
which separates the charges. Capacitance C of such a capacitor
can be calculated as:
C = ε A/d
where ε is the permittivity of the dielectric material, A is the
area of the plates, and d is the separation distance between
plates. An electrolytic capacitor (figure 1b) works similarly to
the parallel-plate capacitor except it has an electrolyte layer
attached to one metal plate working together as a cathode.
The dielectric is an oxide layer of anode and can be as thin
as nanometers. The electrolytic capacitor usually has a larger
capacitance than the parallel-plate capacitor of the same size
because its charge separation distance, d, is smaller.
An EDL capacitor (figure 1c) store charges by using
the EDL at the electrode-electrolyte interface, in which
charges (electrons in the electrode and ions in the electrolyte)
are separated by a distance of less than 1 nm. Moreover,
the area of the EDL is the interface area between the electrode
and electrolyte, which can be as high as more than 3000 m2 /g
for nanoporous carbon electrodes [13]. Therefore, EDL capac-
itor has much larger capacitance than the conventional ones of
the same size, because of the large surface area and the small
charge separation distance, according to equation (1). It is
worth noting that, in an EDL capacitor, each electrode has an
EDL and two electrodes are connected in series. Researchers
have been reporting specific capacitance (capacitance divided
by the mass or volume) of each electrode by testing it
in a three-electrode system. The specific capacitance of a
whole capacitor, however, is the serial capacitance of two
electrodes divided by the total mass or volume, which can
be a different (usually much smaller) value [14].
A pseudo capacitor (figure 1d) also stores energy at the
electrode-electrolyte interface, except that fast redox reactions
are involved [8], [9]. Compared with batteries which store
energy by redox reactions in bulk materials, pseudo capacitors
have reactions only near the surface of the electrode, and
the potential of the electrode, V, is highly dependent on the
extent of charge storage, q, which results in a derivative
dq/dV equivalent to a capacitance. Pseudo capacitance is of
great interest mainly because it shows much higher specific
capacitance than that of EDL capacitance. However, unlike
EDL capacitance that arises from surface charges stored
electrostatically (i.e. non-Faradaically), pseudo capacitance
involves the passage of charges across the electrode-electrolyte
(1) interface (i.e. Faradaic process), which reduces the power
performance and cycle life.
EDL capacitors based on carbon electrodes usually
exhibit 1-5% of pseudo capacitance due to Faradaic reac-
tivity of surface oxygen functionalities, while pseudo capac-
itors always show some EDL capacitance proportional to
the electrode-electrolyte interfacial area [8]. More bal-
anced combinations of the two mechanisms results in
hybrid supercapacitors [9]. For example, pseudo-capacitive
materials can be deposited onto nanostructured carbon sub-
strate to achieve high specific capacitance based on pseudo
capacitors and high power density due to the effects of
EDL capacitors [4], [9], [15].
B. Equivalent Circuit Models for Supercapacitors
MSCs are supposed to be integrated with micro energy
harvesters, sensors, communication modules, and other
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SHEN et al.: REVIEW OF ON-CHIP MSCs FOR INTEGRATED SELF-POWERING SYSTEMS
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit models of supercapacitors. (a) The simplest model including a capacitance, an equivalent serial resistance (RESR ) and an equivalent
parallel resistance (REPR ). (b) The Randles circuit. (c) The equivalent circuit considering both EDL capacitance and pseudo capacitance. (d) The transmission
line model that describes a porous electrode with both electronic resistance (Re ) and ionic resistance (Ri ). (e) The two-branch model to simulate supercapacitor
behaviors in two different time scales.
electronics to store and deliver electrical power. Equivalent
circuit models for MSCs are significant tools to simulate and
evaluate the whole system [16]. Besides, such models also
help us understand and predict the performance of MSCs in
different tests. An ideal capacitor can be modeled as a passive,
linear element in electrical circuits, but a practical capacitor is
always associated with an equivalent serial resistance (RESR )
and an equivalent parallel resistance caused by leakage (REPR )
as shown in figure 2a. Such a circuit can also be used to
model supercapacitors to a first approximation, where C is the
maximum total capacitance of the whole device, RESR is the
equivalent resistance added up by the electrical resistances of
the electrodes and the ionic resistance of the electrolyte, and
REPR represents the total leakage of the supercapacitor through
different mechanisms [17], [18].
More accurate models of supercapacitors can be established
by considering the electrochemical processes in the device. For
example, the charge transfer process in the electrolyte involves
the diffusion of ions, which can be modeled as a Warburg
impedance (W) [8]. A typical equivalent circuit taking W
into account is the Randles circuit as shown in figure 2b [8].
Such a circuit can explain why a constant phase angle
near 45° is observed when testing the impedance of some
supercapacitors in low frequency range. When double-layer
capacitance (Cdl ) and pseudo capacitance (Cp ) are consid-
ered separately, an equivalent circuit can be drawn as in
figure 2c. Here, Cp is in series with a Faradaic charge transfer
resistance (RF ) and in parallel with another resistance (R’F )
representing leakage through the Faradaic reactions. The
equivalent circuit can also become more complex when the
structure of electrodes is considered. For example, a trans-
mission line model (figure 2d) can be used to describe the
bi-continuous nature of electron path (represented by Re ) and
ion path (represented by Ri ) in a porous electrode, and the
capacitance (C) at the electrode-electrolyte interface. In prac-
tical applications, a certain time scale may be of particular
interest, and researchers can use multiple R-C branches to
3
model supercapacitor’s behavior in different time domains. For
example, the two-branch model in figure 2e may describe the
short-term behavior of the device with one branch, and the
long-term behavior with the other one [19]–[21].
C. Performance Metrics and Design
of Micro Supercapacitors
1) Calculation of Energy and Power: As an energy storage
device, the most important features of a supercapacitor are
the amount of energy it can store and power it can provide
per unit weight or volume. Supercapacitors can store more
energy than conventional capacitors because they have larger
capacitance which can be as high as more than 1,000 F/g or
1,000 F/cm3 [22]. But the energy E stored in a capacitor is
not only proportional to the capacitance C, but also limited by
the operational voltage V as:
E = 1/2C V 2 (2)
Therefore, the maximum voltage of a supercapacitor should
always be considered together with the capacitance. The
voltage limit of a supercapacitor is determined by the elec-
trochemical and chemical stability of both electrode and elec-
trolyte. For carbon based EDL electrodes, the electrolytes are
usually more unstable and thus limit the voltage. For example,
EDL capacitors using aqueous electrolytes have a voltage up
to 1V since the electrolysis of water happens at 1.2V. But
devices using organic solvent-based electrolytes or ion liquids
can be charged to 2.5 – 3.5 V [23]. For pseudo capacitors,
however, the reversible reactions that lead to capacitance effect
only happen within certain voltage range. For example, one of
the most studied pseudo capacitive material with very high
specific capacitance, RuO2 , has three accessible oxidation
states within 1.2 V. Another promising electrode material
for pseudo supercapacitors, MnO2 , shows excellent capacitive
behavior within less than 1 V [9]. It is worth noting that,
although some pseudo capacitive material has extremely high
capacitance, it may not store more energy than EDL capacitors
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4 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
because of low operation voltage. For example, a symmetric
supercapacitor using MnO2 with a capacitance of 1145 F/g
for each electrode stores specific energy of ∼25.4 Wh/kg at an
operation voltage of 0.8 V [22], and the device using activated
graphene with 166 F/g stores ∼70 Wh/kg at 3.5 V [13].
To measure the capacitance and energy capacity of a super-
capacitor, two electrochemical approaches are mostly adopted.
One is cyclic voltammetry, which applies a linearly increas-
ing/decreasing voltage and measures the charge/discharge cur-
rent, the other is chronopotentiometry, which uses a constant
current to charge/discharge the device and measures the volt-
age. The average capacitance over the measured voltage range
can be calculated by definition as:
 t
Q Idt
C avg = = 0 (3)
V V
where Q is the total charge transferred; V is the voltage
range measured; I is the current measured or applied;
t is the total time of the measurement. The capacitance
is usually not a constant over the operating voltage range,
and equation (2) may not be accurate enough to calculate the
energy for supercapacitors. Instead, more accurate calculation
of energy by measurement is:
 t
E= V · Idt (4)
0 electrodes are made thicker. However, the volumetric capaci-
where V and I are measured voltage and current over time.
The power can be calculated at the same time:
E inner pore structure [12], or pseudo capacitive materials with
P= (5)
t
It should be noted that measured energy densities are
highly dependent on the test conditions, especially the
charge/discharge rate of the device. Smaller value of energy
density is always obtained when the device is working
at higher power (i.e., under higher scan rate or larger
charge/discharge current). The phenomenon is caused by the
equivalent internal resistance, including electrical resistance
and ionic resistance, of the device. By looking at the simplest
equivalent circuit model in figure 2a, it is obvious that the
equivalent serial resistance causes higher IR drop when a
higher current goes through the circuit, and less charge/energy
can be stored into or withdrawn from the capacitor. The
input/output power of the supercapacitor will reach a maxi-
mum value before the IR drop exceeds the operation voltage.
A comprehensive approach to evaluate the performance of
a supercapacitor device is to test over a wide range of
various scan rates or charge/discharge currents, calculate the
corresponding power and energy, and plot the results in a
Ragone plot [9], [14]. The Ragone plot provides the important
information of how much energy can be stored into/withdrawn
from an energy storage device when it’s working at a certain
input/output power.
2) Proper Performance Metrics for Micro Supercapacitors:
Researchers have been reporting the performances of superca-
pacitors normalized by weight or volume so that it’s easier
to evaluate different electrode materials. In a micro power
system, however, the weight of a MSC is negligible, and
Fig. 3. Various features to be considered for the desired performances of
micro supercapacitors.
the substrate area and device volume are always limited.
Therefore, the areal and volumetric performances of MSCs are
of more significance than the gravimetric ones. Many papers
report volumetric capacitances or energies which are mainly
dependent on properties of electrode materials. Such values are
of significance for comparison between different materials and
evaluation of the potential energy capacity of a MSC when the
tance of a certain material is usually not constant with different
electrode thicknesses. Instead, it decreases when the electrode
becomes thicker, especially for EDL electrodes with complex
inaccessible redox sites [24]. Performances normalized to the
footprint area of MSCs are more practical, because the devices
are supposed to be integrated with electronics on limited
substrate areas. Therefore, the areal performances are mainly
discussed and analyzed in this review, aiming to provide more
practical insight into the application of on-chip MSCs.
3) Design of MSC: A lot of fabrication protocols and
electrode materials have been reported to be viable for the
construction of MSCs. It is important to identify the applica-
tion requirements of the device before concluding what kind
of design is the best. In the context of this review, we mainly
concern about the application of MSC in an integrated self-
powering system. Three features are most desirable, including
integrateability (i.e. the ability to be integrated with other
on-chip components), high areal energy density, and high areal
power density. The integrateability is determined by the com-
patibility of the fabrication process, such as how the electrodes
are fabricated and electrolyte is packaged. The energy and
power densities are also highly dependent on the fabrication
protocols, since they determine what electrode and electrolyte
materials can be used and what configurations (i.e. the geome-
try of electrodes and the way two electrodes are arranged) can
be constructed. Figure 3 shows various features that should be
considered for the desired performances of MSCs. A more
detailed review of typical fabrication protocols and materials
for MSCs is given in the next section. The following part of
this section discusses the configuration design of MSCs and
how it affects the performances.
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SHEN et al.: REVIEW OF ON-CHIP MSCs FOR INTEGRATED SELF-POWERING SYSTEMS 5

Fig. 4. Diagrams of the on-chip micro supercapacitor with (a) a sandwich structure, and (b) an interdigital structure. Adapted with permission from [25].
Equivalent circuit models for porous electrodes in (c) a sandwich structure, and (d) an interdigital structure.

Two configurations are proposed to construct on-chip
MSCs. The first one has the layer-by-layer sandwich structure,
in which two electrode layers sandwiching electrolyte are par-
allel to the substrate plane. The other one has two electrodes
separated in the same plane, mostly patterned as interdigitated
fingers. Figure 4a and 4b show the cross-section schematics of
the two structures, respectively [25]. Although the sandwich
structure has been widely used in macro-sized supercapacitors
and on-chip thin-film batteries, the interdigitated structure
shows more advantages for MSCs, especially when thick
electrodes are required to store enough energy in a fixed
substrate area. The interdigitated configuration is easier to be
integrated with other circuitry on a chip, because it allows
electrical connection in the same plane. The reported papers
also show many different approaches to fabricate interdigitated
electrodes, while there are limited reports on the fabrication
methods for the on-chip capacitors based on the sandwich
structure probably due to the limited choices of solid elec-
trolyte and the assembly methods [4].
Moreover, three-dimensional interdigitated electrodes with
high aspect ratio can potentially have both larger energy
capacity and higher power density than the sandwich one with
the same thickness. As mentioned in the previous section,
the volumetric capacitance of an electrode material may not
translate from thin to thick electrodes, because thick electrodes
may have more inaccessible surface area inside. While ions in
electrolyte can only transport through vertical direction (direc-
tion of t1 in figure 4a) in the sandwich structure, they can
access through both vertical (t2 in figure 4b) and parallel
(we in figure 4b) directions in the interdigitated one. As a
result, it is possible that the increase of t2 may not result in the
decrease of volumetric capacitance of the electrode material if
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6 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
we is kept small, and the energy capacity of the interdigitated
structure may be larger than that of a sandwich structure with
the same amount of active materials.
On the other hand, the power density is highly dependent
on the internal resistance of the device, which can be tuned
in the interdigitated structure by changing the width of elec-
trodes (we ) and the space between the electrodes (ws ). A num-
ber of papers have proven that, by decreasing we and ws ,
better power performance of the MSC is presented because
of a shortened ion transport path [26], [27]. Furthermore,
the electrodes have to be thicker to store more energy on
a limited substrate area, and the internal resistance of a
sandwich-structured MSC increases with thicker electrodes,
while that of an interdigitated one may not. To make a
more convincing explanation, we can use transmission line
models (see section 2.2) to describe the distributed elec-
tronic resistance (Re ), capacitance (C), and ionic resis-
tance (Ri,p ) in a porous electrode for both structures, as shown
in figure 4c and 4d, respectively. To a first approximation,
the equivalent circuit of figure 4c describes one electrode in
a sandwich structure such as in figure 4a, and it explains that
the increase in electrode thickness (t1 ) would increase both
electronic and ionic resistance. In an interdigitated structure
such as in figure 4b, however, the ion transport direction is
perpendicular to the thickness direction of electrodes and the
electrode can be modeled as figure 4d. The ionic resistance,
which dominates the total internal resistance in most MSCs,
decreases with thicker electrodes, since the distributed ionic
resistance elements (dRi,p and dRi ) are parallel to each other.
In summary, an optimized structure for MSCs to achieve
both high energy and power densities on a limited sub-
strate area can be realized through the following approaches:
(1) to separate two electrodes in the substrate plane; (2) to
make electrodes as thick as possible; (3) to keep the width
of electrodes and the space between electrodes as narrow
as possible. Three-dimensional (3D) interdigitated electrodes
with high aspect ratio is one of the optimized choices. Many
MSCs reported in the literature have used interdigitated elec-
trodes, but most of them are not considered as 3D because
their electrodes are too thin. Though there is no clear standard
that differentiates 3D electrodes from planar ones, this review
recognizes 3D MSCs when the electrode thicknesses are of
the same order of the electrode widths and gaps, or simply
when the aspect ratio of the structure is larger than 0.1
(e.g. t1 /we > 0.1 in figure 4b). The major challenge to make
such a 3D structure is to synthesize a thick layer of elec-
trode material with micro-sized separation without shorting
the two electrodes. The following chapter reviews common
fabrication protocols to build micro-patterned supercapacitors,
the electrode material properties and overall performance are
also discussed.
III. FABRICATION AND I NTEGRATION M ETHODS
There have been intensive efforts on high-performance
electrode materials for macro-scale supercapacitors. While
MSCs apply the same types of materials, they are additionally
required to be patterned and integrated on chips. Therefore,
the fabrication processes including the synthesis of electrode
material, patterning of electrodes, and package of the whole
device are of particular significance to realize the most desired
features of MSCs, including the integrateability and high areal
energy and power densities.
Various methods have been developed to construct MSCs,
and their strategies can be classified into three types in terms
of how electrode materials are patterned. For the first type,
electrode materials are synthesized elsewhere and then physi-
cally transferred onto the patterned substrate by methods like
MEMS-assisted injection, printing, electrophoretic deposition,
etc. In those methods, the types of electrode materials are
almost unlimited as long as they can be uniformly dispersed
into ink-like solutions. As a result, various nanostructured
carbon materials and metal oxides in powder form have been
used for MSC electrodes, which are detailed in the following
sections from A to C. For the second type, materials are
directly deposited on patterned conductive electrodes using
electrochemical deposition, chemical vapor deposition (CVD),
etc. The construction of such electrodes needs chemical
sources either from liquid solutions or from gases. Uniform
coatings of pseudocapacitive materials including conducting
polymer and metal oxides are typical electrode materials
converted from monomer or ion solutions (section C),
while various forms of carbon such as carbon nanotube and
carbide-derived carbon are grown by vapor-based deposition
at high temperatures (section D). The electrode materials
in the third one, however, are chemically transformed and
patterned at the same time by methods like laser scribing and
carbon MEMS technology. Polymers or polymer-based com-
posites are used as precursors and no other chemical sources
are needed in those cases. The resulting electrodes are all
carbon-based electrodes (section E and F).
Though 3D electrodes with high aspect ratio are preferred
configurations for high-performance MSCs, only a few fab-
rication methods have demonstrated micro electrodes with
aspect ratios of larger than 0.1. Examples are mostly seen in
MEMS-assisted injection (section A), where MEMS structures
are used as the mechanical support, CVD (section D), where
vertically aligned carbon nanotubes can be grown, and carbon-
MEMS (section F), where photoresists with high-aspect-ratio
structure are directly carbonized. More details of the fabrica-
tion methods and representative works are summarized below,
with discussion of possible packaging and integration methods
followed.
A. MEMS-Assisted Injection
As analyzed in the previous section, the 3D electrodes with
high-aspect-ratio can contribute to high performance of MSCs.
One way to build such electrodes is to create a high-aspect-
ratio MEMS structure as mechanical support, and then inject
an “ink” containing active electrode materials and polymer
binders into the trenches of the structure. The ink could be
any electrode material suspended in a solvent, as long as
the suspension is uniform and able to be injected into the
micro trenches. The mechanical support could be removed
after solidification of the ink to decrease the ion transport
path in electrolyte and increase the power density, or retained
as a separator so that the electrodes are more mechanically
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SHEN et al.: REVIEW OF ON-CHIP MSCs FOR INTEGRATED SELF-POWERING SYSTEMS 7

Fig. 5. Steps to form 3D electrodes: (a) etch the substrate to form deep channels; (b) deposit an insulation layer and then a metal layer as the current
collector, the unnecessary layers on the top of the wall are removed by lithography and etching; (c) fill the channels with electrode materials; (d) etch the
wall between two electrodes [25].

stable with some sacrifice of the power performance. Such an

approach achieves the thickest electrodes (more than 300 μm)
and high aspect ratios (more than 1) for on-chip supercapaci-
tor, and result in high energy density per footprint area.
The high-aspect-ratio MEMS structure can be created
on silicon wafer by wet or dry etching technologies.
Durou et al. [28] fabricated a MSC using Si3 N4 coated
silicon wall as the separator, and the unprotected region is
etched by KOH as the cavity for the active material filling.
With the 336 μm-thick electrodes and a thickness-to-width
ratio of ∼0.58 for each electrode, the MSC shows an energy
density of 71.4 μWh/cm2 . Although wet etching is facile and
low-cost, the utilization of the footprint area is limited by
the trapezoidal cross section due to the non-vertical crystal
orientation. Dry etching achieves its anisotropic removal of
materials by the bombardments of reactive ions, and deep
trenches with about 90 degree walls and higher aspect-ratio
can be fabricated. Shen et al. reported a silicon 3D MSC
with high-aspect-ratio (∼0.5 for each electrode and ∼3 for the
gap between electrodes) interdigital electrodes by inductive
coupled plasma (ICP) etching [25]. After active material
injection to the deep trenches, the separator wall was removed Fig. 6. The schematic diagram of the screen printing fabrication
by ICP (Fig. 5). The fabricated device with 50 μm-thick process [40].
electrodes and 15 μm separation leads to an energy density
of 12.6 μWh/cm2 and a high power density of 51.5 mW/cm2 . Screen printing and ink-jet printing are the most widely
To build electrodes with a higher aspect-ratio and vertical used printing technologies for the facile and low-cost fab-
sidewalls, photoresist patterned by the standard photolitho- rications [34]–[41]. During the screen printing process, inks
graphy process could also be the separator [29]–[33]. For containing active materials were pressed through the opening
instance, Li et al. constructed a 3D MSCs with high-aspect- of a pre-prepared mesh to form the pattern onto the substrate.
ratio (∼0.7 for each electrode and ∼4 for the gap between As for the ink-jet printing, small droplets of ink were propelled
electrodes) interdigital electrodes supported and separated by onto the substrate through micro nozzles, with a controlled
SU-8 [32]. The 200 μm thick prototype device demonstrates a nozzle size as well as the pre-programmed motion. Many of
large capacitance of 311 mF/cm2 , with a high energy density the reported studies have used these technologies. As typical
of 380 μWh/cm2 when working at 3V. examples, Pech et al. applied ink-jet to make a MSC using
activated carbon-based ink [34]. The micro device shows a
B. Printing Technologies cell capacitance of 2.1 mF/cm2 . Wang et al. demonstrated
Printing technologies are also representative methods that a MnO2 /onion-like carbon (MnO2/OLC) based MSC by the
physically deposit electrode materials onto micro patterns. screen printing technology [40]. In this work, silver and active
Such technologies do not require the complex photolithog- material were sequentially pressed onto the substrate through
raphy process so that the fabrication process can be greatly a same mesh to form the micro electrodes (Fig. 6) and a
simplified. Meanwhile, the printed MSCs are inherently inte- specific areal capacitance of 7.04 mF/cm2 have been achieved.
gratable with printing electronics, which have been thriving in More recently, C. Shen et al. developed the printing of flexible
recent years. MSCs by near-field electrospining, in which functional fibers
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8 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
with diameters of hundreds of nanometers are deposited on
micro patterns using inks composed of polypyrrole [42]. The
prototype device shows a capacitance of 0.48 mF/cm2 and the
performance is not affected when it is bent to different extents.
However, the major disadvantage of printing technologies
in fabrication of MSCs is the relatively low aspect-ratio of
the patterned electrodes because the maximum thickness of
printed film is limited to a few microns and the patterning
resolution is usually hundreds of microns. Meanwhile, the vis-
cosity and surface tension of the inks need to be adjusted,
which may limit the choice of active materials.
C. Electrochemical and Electrophoretic Deposition
Electrochemical deposition, also called electrodeposition or
electroplating, and electrophoretic deposition are both com-
mon fabrication methods for MSCs. They are generally used
to deposit a thin and tightly adherent coating of active material
onto the surface of conductive substrates. While electrochem-
ical deposition chemically reduces or oxidizes the desired
chemical species in a solution by applying a voltage or a
current, electrophoretic deposition physically attracts colloidal
particles suspended in a liquid medium by using the electrosta-
tic force. Both techniques are cost-effective, scalable, of low
interfacial resistance, and able to deposit thick film.
By choosing different depositing materials, electrochemical/
electrophoretic deposition would render the device different
features. For example, we can build MSCs with outstanding
power density through the electrophoretic deposition of highly
conductive carbon material with easily accessible surface
area [43]–[47]. Niu et al. fabricated a MSC with ultrathin
reduced graphene oxide (rGO) interdigital electrodes [45]. The
device with electrophoretic deposited 25 nm-thick rGO elec-
trodes shows a volumetric energy density of 31.9 mWh/cm3
with the maximum power density of 324 W/cm3 , or areal den-
sity of 0.08 μWh/cm2 and 0.81 mW/cm2 . Pech et al. deposited
a 7 μm-thick OLC film also by the electrophoretic deposition
on the micro patterned gold current collector [27]. In order to
stabilize the OLC particles, Mg(OH)2 as an inorganic binder
is co-deposited. With the good electrical contact as well as the
accessible external surface of OLCs, the MSC can discharge
at 200 V/s, with a maximum volumetric power density close
to 1000 W/cm3 , or areal density of 700 mW/cm2 .
Another promising application of either the electrochemi-
cal or electrophoretic deposition is to significantly improve
the capacitance of porous carbon-based micro electrodes
by uniform coating of an additional pseudo-capacitive
layer [48]–[51]. Li et al. reported the electrochemical depo-
sition of MnO2 on porous carbon substrate to form hybrid
electrodes of MSCs [51]. The MnO2 reduced from aqueous
MnO− 4 solution was uniformly and efficiently deposited on
the carbon framework by controlling the deposition rate.
Compared with pure carbon, the capacitance of composite
electrode increased by 4 times to 23.2 mF/cm2 at a scan
rate of 50 mV/s. Li et al. electrochemically deposited PPY,
MnO2 and FeOOH onto laser induced graphene (LIG) to form
symmetrical or asymmetrical MSCs [49]. The thicknesses of
each material were precisely controlled to meet the balance
by adjusting the deposition time or cycles. The asymmetric
LIG-FeOOH//LIG-MnO2 MSC shows a good areal energy
of 9.6 μWh/cm2 at a power of 11.85 mW/cm2 .
In spite of those advantages, electrochemical or elec-
trophoretic deposition uses the wet processes and the sub-
strates have to be immersed in complex solutions. To integrate
wet-processed electrodes with other components, additional
efforts are required. For instance, a protection layer that covers
other area of the substrate should be applied, or the MSCs
should be fabricated separately with other substrates and then
be integrated through bonding with the device substrates.
D. Vapor Based Deposition Technologies
Vapor based deposition technologies categorized by physical
vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
convert active materials to vapor phase to be deposited on
substrates and they are widely used in the fabrication of MSC
electrodes. As the commonly used processes in semiconductor
fabrication, vapor based depositions are inherently compatible
with MEMS technologies. Meanwhile, films produced by
vapor based deposition methods are continuous, uniform, and
cohesive to the substrates and of well-controlled thicknesses,
which grant MSCs great capacitive performances.
PVD method can be applied to fabricate ordered nanoporous
electrodes for MSCs. By selective removal of particular
ingredient from the sputtered alloy or carbide, a well-
organized nanoporous structure can be constructed, which
is not only a high performance supercapacitor electrode,
but also a 3D porous framework for the further coating
process [52]–[55]. For example, Zeng et al. sputtered a film
of Au-Ag alloy and then etched the Ag to get a nanoporous
gold (NPG) substrate [55]. MnO2 nanowires were subse-
quently electrodeposited on the NPG substrate to enhance the
capacitive performance. The MnO2 /NPG based MSC demon-
strates a power density of 3.4 W/cm3 which is an excellent
number among MnO2 -based MSCs. Huang et al. reported a
carbide-derived carbon (CDC) based MSC, on which a layer
of TiC was firstly sputtered and then the Ti element was
removed by the chlorination etching [53]. The CDC layer
shows a narrow pore size distribution with a mean pore size
of 0.59 nm. The as-fabricated interdigitated MSC shows a
high volumetric capacitance of 350 F/cm3 , with an energy
density of 35 μWh/cm2 , for each electrode. In spite of
high volumetric capacitances, the areal performances of these
MSCs are relatively limited due to the low deposition rate of
the sputtering process and the rapid decay of the volumetric
capacitance for thick electrodes.
Likewise, CVD method can be used to deposit various
functional materials with interesting nanostructures, such as
graphene nano sheets [56]–[58], carbon nanotubes (CNT)
[50], [59]–[65], Si [66] and SiC [67] nanowires, and so on.
These materials can be grown vertically from the substrate
surface, resulting in ordered and open nanoporous structures
with high surface areas and ion transportation interfaces in
electrolytes. The work reported by Miller et al. is frequently
taken as the example [56], which vertically grows graphene
nano sheets on nickel foil by CVD and then constructed a
MSC with an excellent frequency response comparable to elec-
trolytic capacitors. Such performance results from the highly
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SHEN et al.: REVIEW OF ON-CHIP MSCs FOR INTEGRATED SELF-POWERING SYSTEMS
Fig. 7. The fabrication of LSG MSCs: (a–c) the schematic diagram showing the fabrication process for an LSG micro-supercapacitor. (d,e) More than 100
micro-devices can be produced on a single run. The micro-devices are flexible and can be produced on virtually any substrate with proper polymer
coatings [72].
exposed graphene surface and small interfacial resistance. The
vertically aligned CNT (VACNT) forests grown by CVD,
on the other hand, have attracted more attention for MSCs,
because they can form thick electrodes with high aspect-ratio
structures in which the thickness-to-width ratio can be larger
than 2 [62]. They can also serve as the scaffolds for further
depositions of pseudo-capacitive materials by providing excel-
lent electrical contact with the substrate with high vertical
conductivity and ordered porous structure [50], [62]. After
the growth of VACNT, pseudo-capacitive materials including
Ni(OH)2 [50], RuO2 [59], PPy [60], MnO2 [65], etc. have
been further coated to demonstrate improved capacitance for
on-chip energy storage applications. In particular, Warren et al.
fabricated the RuO2 coated VACNT electrodes via atomic
layer deposition [59], and showed a high volumetric capaci-
tance of ∼100 F/cm3 , or a gravimetric capacitance of 644 F/g,
which is two orders higher than the bare VACNT without any
coating.
E. Laser Scribing and Cutting
Laser scribing has recently been developed for the fabri-
cation of MSCs on certain carbonaceous materials [48], [49],
[68]–[75]. The high energy from laser irradiation results in
high localized temperature, which breaks the chemical bonds
between carbon and other light elements, such as oxygen,
hydrogen and nitrogen. Subsequently, the light elements will
be released as gas and the carbon sustained can be rearranged
to form graphene. As the size of focal point and the motion
path of the laser beams can be controlled, laser scribed
graphene (LSG) micro electrodes can be formed and patterned
at the same time. Meanwhile, LSG has not only good con-
ductivity, but also high porosity, which increases the specific
9
surface area and ion accessibility. These properties make LSG
a promising electrode material for both high power and high
energy MSCs.
The batch fabrication of LSG MSCs with programmable
laser equipment has been reported. El-Kady and Kaner demon-
strated the direct laser reduction of GO using a standard DVD
burner [72]. More than 100 MSCs could be prepared on a sin-
gle disc in 30 min (Fig 7) and each of them shows a volumetric
power density of 200 W/cm3 , or areal density of 152 mW/cm2 .
To further decrease the cost, polyimide (PI), a less expensive
carbonaceous precursor is used for the LSG fabrications. It has
been reported that the heteroatom could simultaneously be
doped into carbon frame during the laser scribing process [69].
The doping of heteroatoms, such as boron and nitrogen, will
enhance the carrier density and lead to the increase of the
conductivity, but also improve the electrolyte wettability and
pseudo capacitance of the materials. A boron doped LSG
MSC demonstrated an areal capacitance of 16.5 mF/cm2 [69],
three times higher than the undoped sample. Moreover,
LSG can also be used as the scaffold for the deposition of
other pseudo-capacitive materials due to its high conductivity
and 3D porous structure. MnO2 was electrochemical deposited
on the electrode to form a hybrid MSC [48]. The as-fabricated
device shows an ultrahigh capacitance of 400 F/cm2 , with a
high energy density of 35.6 μWh/cm2 .
Laser can also be used to cut unwanted materials of
MSC electrodes [58], [76]–[79]. In those cases, the focused
beam heats the surface of the thin film, and then evapo-
rates or melts the unwanted parts. Compared with the plasma
etching processing [80], [81], laser cutting is facile and can be
applied to various materials, but it brings rough edges because
of the heat diffusion process.
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10 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS

Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the photopatterned nanoporous carbon structures for MSCs. (a) Nanocomposite of the photosensitive polymer and template
material is first spin-coated on a substrate. (b) The composite membrane is exposed to light through a photomask. (c) The patterns on the photomask is
transferred to the membrane. (d) Patterned carbon membrane is formed after pyrolysis of the composite membrane under high temperature in inert atmosphere.
(e–g) Illustration of the nanostructure of the composite in each step. Porous polymer (h) or porous carbon (i) can be obtained by removing the template after
the corresponding steps [84].

F. Carbon MEMS Based Technologies
Carbon MEMS (C-MEMS) are derived from the carboniza-
tion of photoresists and can be used to fabricate the micro
electrodes for MSCs [51], [82]–[87]. In such technologies,
photoresist is first patterned by conventional photolithography,
and then carbonized to form the conductive carbon struc-
tures. By using thick photoresist layer and high resolution
photolithography process, electrodes with high-aspect-ratios
of more than 2 [87] can be constructed. The resulting carbon
structure is amorphous with good mechanical strength, moder-
ate conductivity, but relatively low specific surface area (SSA).
The thick and porous carbon layers can be directly used
as electrodes of MSCs. Wei et al. fabricated an all-solid-state
MSC using photoresist derived porous carbon with an ionogel
electrolyte [86]. After the carbonization process, the electrode
thickness shrinks from 10 μm to 1.2 μm, and the as-fabricated
micro device shows a relatively small specific capacitance
of 600 μF/cm2 at 10 mV/s due to the low SSA. While
Shen et al. reported a nanoporous carbon 3D interdigital
MSC by combining nano template method with the C-MEMS
technology [84]. In this work, nano silica particles are firstly
mixed with the photoresist and then etched by HF after the
carbonization process, as illustrated in Figure 8. The resulting
mesoporous carbon film has an average pore size of around
30 nm and the thickness can reach 40 μm. A 5-μm-thick
prototype device has a specific capacitance of 6.7 mF/cm2 ,
with an energy density of 0.93 μWh/cm2 . Such 3D electrodes
with tunable porosity and pore size are also demonstrated to
be excellent scaffold of pseudo-capacitive coating to achieve
larger capacitances [51].
G. Other Thin Film Fabrication Methods
Several thin film electrodes have been demonstrated by
spray-coating, spin-coating, self-assembly, etc. Such electrodes
provide high volumetric performances due to the short ion
transportation path and the efficient use of electrode materials,
but have low areal performances because of the low areal
mass loading. Although these methods may not be used to
fabricate thick electrodes for MSCs, they can play the role
in some applications that the areal energy or power density
is not at the highest priority. They can be used to build the
MSCs which require a low effective series resistance and high
charging/discharging rate
Spray-coating is one of the approaches used for the depo-
sition of thin films [76], [77], [88]–[94], in which small
droplets composed of active materials are sprayed out with
the compressed gas and uniformly fall on the heated substrate.
The resulted film is usually loose and porous. Pu et al. demon-
strated a highly stretchable MSC array with sprayed single-
walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) electrode (Figure 9) [93].
Taking the advantages of high conductivity of SWCNT
and large pore size, the maximum charging/discharging rate
of 100 V/s and power density of 40 W/cm3 were achieved.
Spin-coating is also frequently used to fabricate
MSCs [82], [83], [95]–[99], in which the colloidal of
active materials are first dropped on the substrate, and then
extended out under a high speed spinning process. The
centrifugal force during the spinning can control the surface
roughness and thickness of the film. A film of GO was
spin coated and reduced on the Si wafer with an ultra-small
thickness of 15 nm [97]. After the deposition of gold layer
and electrode patterning, the micro device demonstrated
a high power density of 1270 W/cm3 and a scan rate up
to 2000 V/s.
Self-assembly is a method that directly deposit materials
on substrates by the local interactions among the materials
themselves. By this method, materials can be designed to form
an organized nano structure to provide higher performance.
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SHEN et al.: REVIEW OF ON-CHIP MSCs FOR INTEGRATED SELF-POWERING SYSTEMS 11

Fig. 9. (a) schematic illustration of a stretched and bent device and (b) capacitance retention versus elongation (the inset figure shows CV curves for −50%
compression and 0−150% elongation) [93].

Fig. 10. Schematic of a 3D all-solid-state MSC with interdigital electrodes consisting of carbon particle/polymer electrolyte (PE) composite. The incorporation
of ion-containing PE in the electrode material before the formation of the electrode (left schematic) promotes the diffusion of PE in the electrode bulk after
PE gel coating (right schematic), resulting in the formation of a 3D PE network [102].

Wu et al. reported the self-reduction and deposition of
GO on the copper interdigital electrodes [100]. The result-
ing rGO electrodes demonstrate a great conductivity and
large pore size, which grant the micro device a capacitance
of 0.316 mF/cm2 at frequency of 120Hz.
H. Packaging and Integration of MSCs
Although MSCs with all kinds of electrode materials have
been demonstrated using various fabrication methods, fully
integrated MSCs are seldom. It would be very helpful to
evaluate the integrateability of a MSC, but it’s very difficult
to set up criteria at this early stage due to the fast-advancing
technologies. Strictly speaking, to the best of our knowledge,
no reported MSC has fully compatible process with current
MEMS foundries that are making commercial MEMS prod-
ucts. There are certain electrode materials, however, that are
relatively easier to be compatible with standard commercial
protocols. For example, carbon-based electrodes produced by
vapor-based deposition (section D) and carbon-MEMS tech-
nologies (section F) could use standard equipment to fabricate
but with different material sources.
On the other hand, even if the electrode fabrication is
compatible with MEMS, the packaging of MSCs requires
the encapsulation of electrolyte and may not follow stan-
dard processes. In particular, liquid electrolytes usually show
better performance than solid-state ones, while they have
more challenging packaging issues. A few works still demon-
strate the packaging of MSCs arrays with liquid electrolytes.
H. Durou et al. enclosed the MSC electrodes by using
photoresist: manually dropping liquid electrolyte onto the
enclosed area in a glove-box with controlled Ar atmosphere,
and sealing the devices through a wafer-bonding process [28].
K. Laszczyk et al. also used photoresist to enclose the
electrode first, and the electrolyte was applied by a micro-
inkjet printing process and sealed by CVD of parylene [101].
Solid-state and gel electrolyte prepared by mixing aqueous
electrolyte with polymers can be easier to encapsulate and
are frequently used in recent studies. However, low ionic
conductivities and poor ion accessibility in small pores are
drawbacks of such electrolytes [6]. A method to ameliorate the
shortage is to replace the organic binder inside the electrodes
with gel electrolyte, so that the small pores of the electrodes
are more accessible to ions in the electrolyte, as shown
in Fig 10 [102].
There are a few works showing the integration of MSC with
other MEMS devices, or even integrated circuits, by assembly
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12 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS

Fig. 11. Area-normalized Ragone plots of representative on-chip MSCs (noted with lines or dots) and estimated performance requirements of MSCs with an
area of ∼1 cm2 to work with different applications such as energy harvesters [2], [104]–[113], sensors [121]–[124], and wireless communications [117]–[120].
The footprint area of MSCs include the area of interdigitated fingers and gaps.

of components fabricated separately. For example, Yun et al.
integrated a micro gas sensor with MSCs array [92]. The
patterned-graphene sensor powered by MSCs could detect
NO2 gas for longer than 50 min. Maeng et al. integrated
chips with MSCs on a parylene substrate [103]. The chips
are manually flip-chip bonded under a microscope using
a room-temperature silver conductive epoxy. However, this
handmade method is not suitable for batch fabrication, and
scalable processes are still in need of development for practical
applications.
IV. P ERFORMANCE R EQUIREMENTS
OF P OTENTIAL A PPLICATIONS
The potential applications of MSCs may include the
integrations with energy harvesters and wirelessly operating
microelectronics to realize self-powered and maintenance-free
functional systems. It is of great significance to consider
the performance requirements of such applications before
evaluating practical MSCs. Since most energy harvesters and
wireless modules are working in an intermittent manner, the
basic requirement of MSCs is to be able to store enough energy
from energy harvesters, and provide enough power to wireless
modules. Considering that the integrated MSCs may have
limited sizes, their performances normalized by area or volume
could provide reasonable guidelines for practical applications.
For the extensive literature search, most reported MSCs have
an area of 0.1-10 cm2 , and volume (including substrate
and package) of 0.01-1 cm3 . Such sizes are similar to the
sizes of MEMS-based energy harvesters, sensors, and wire-
less modules. We can assume that an area of 1 cm2 , or a
volume of 0.1 cm3 is assigned for a MSC in an integrated
system, then the required power density of the MSC would
be no less than the working power of the system divided
by 1 cm2 , or 0.1 cm3 . The required energy density, on the
other hand, would be no less than the power density times
the duration of one operation of the system, which could
be half a day for a solar cell, or milliseconds for one
wireless transmission. Following this assumption, we plot the
power and energy densities required of MSCs to work with
typical energy harvesters, sensors, and wireless modules in
Figure 11 and 12, together with representative performances of
reported MSCs.
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SHEN et al.: REVIEW OF ON-CHIP MSCs FOR INTEGRATED SELF-POWERING SYSTEMS 13

Fig. 12. Volume-normalized Ragone plots of representative on-chip MSCs (noted with lines or dots) and estimated performance requirements of MSCs with
a volume of ∼0.1 cm3 to work with different applications such as energy harvesters, sensors, and wireless communications. The volume of MSCs is estimated
by the product of device footprint area and the MSC electrode thickness.

Today’s energy harvesting technologies can generate elec-
tricity from many different sources, such as solar, thermal,
wind, environmental vibration, human motion, and so on [2],
[104]–[113]. However, most of the energy sources are unable
to provide continuous and stable power supplies. The energy
harvested from the environment is greatly affected by the
time and weather. For example, the maximum solar power
can reach about 100 mW/cm2 on a sunny day, and a typical
solar cell with an efficiency of 10-20% can produce a peak
power of 10-20 mW/cm2 . But the power is much lower
under bad weather conditions and approaches zero at night.
To fully harvest and store the solar energy during a sunny
day and deliver it at other times, the energy density of an
integrated MSC of the similar size may need to be at the
level of 100 mWh/cm2 (Figure 11). Thermal energy is also a
common source for energy harvesting and one good example is
the thermoelectric devices. They can generate electrical power
with heat flows from higher-temperature resources such as
human body and machines, to lower-temperature air environ-
ments. The energy conversion efficiency and power output are
usually low because the temperature difference is limited in
small scales [107], [114]. Another widely studied harvesting
method is to convert mechanical energy to electricity by
using MEMS harvesters using various mechanisms, including
piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic, and so on [107],
[108], [115]. These technologies produce harvesters with a
wide range of power densities, and these devices usually
generate alternating currents and reach peak power only at
high-frequency vibrations (∼kHz). As such, in order to store
energy from these harvesters, MSCs need to work at very high
power density conditions. Furthermore, small time constants of
MSCs are desirable in cases where high-frequency alternating
currents are generated to good energy storage efficiencies [70].
The power consumption of a complete wireless node
may come from different components such as radio fre-
quency (RF) communication unit, sensor unit, computing
unit, and so on [116]. In most cases, the wireless commu-
nication systems by means of RF transmissions require the
highest power [117]–[120], while common sensors that mea-
sure temperature, pressure, humidity, optics, acoustics, etc.,
usually consume much less power [121]–[124]. The power
consumption of a commercial wireless module can be from
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14
50 to 1000 mW for short-range communications using Blue-
tooth Low Energy, Zigbee, WiFi, etc., and from 600 to
3000 mW for long-range communications using GPRS, 3G,
4G-LTE, etc. [120]. Fortunately, these communication units
and computing units are not working continuously and are in
the sleep mode for most of the time. One can harvest and
store enough energy when the electronics are in low-power
mode, and deliver high power for one operation (less than 1s)
such as RF communications. Therefore, the basic requirement
of MSCs in such applications is to be able to work at very
high power and to deliver enough energy during intermittent
high-power operations.
Figure 11 shows that the reported MSCs have performances
high enough for certain applications, but better performances
are still needed under limited footprint areas. Since most
of the MSCs only use electrodes much thinner than the
substrates (e.g. 300-500 μm for silicon wafer) or the package
supports (e.g. 0.5-3 mm for printed circuit board), thicker
MSC electrodes are one possible approach to improve both
energy and power outputs per footprint area, even though
the volumetric performances of the materials may drop (as
discussed in section 2). Another approach is to stack cells on
the vertical dimension so that the high volumetric performance
of a single cell is preserved. Nevertheless, the complexity
and cost of fabrication will be increased in this case. By all
means, the utilization of the vertical dimension is relatively
low in current MSC designs and can bring opportunities in
the future. Figure 12 summarizes the volumetric performances
of representative MSCs, and their possible applications if one
can achieve 1 mm-thick MSC electrodes without losing the
volumetric properties of the materials. Typical performances
of batteries and conventional capacitors are also plotted in
the same figure. Some of the reported MSCs have shown
energy densities comparable to that of batteries, and some
others have shown power densities as high as conventional
capacitors. Such performances have the potential for various
applications in a self-powering wireless micro system.
V. O UTLOOK
Emerging on-chip energy storage devices such as MSCs
are potential components for fully integrated, self-powering,
and wirelessly operating micro systems. The integrateability,
energy density, and power density are three most important
features of MSCs for practical applications. As reviewed in
this paper, a variety of MSCs with a wide range of energy
and power densities have been demonstrated based on different
fabrication processes and materials in recent years. Progresses
have been made by using new materials and structural designs,
while some key application areas, especially wireless com-
munications, are still demanding higher performances per
footprint area. Our analysis concludes that the further utiliza-
tions of the dimension perpendicular to the substrate (vertical
direction) is a key direction to develop better and practical
integrated MSCs.
Opportunities of future MSCs lie in building 3D elec-
trodes that make better usages of high-performance materials.
Reduction of fabrication cost and improvement of the process
JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
compatibility with MEMS and other active components are
important for commercial products. Although not discussed
in detail, other important properties of MSCs such as cycle
life, current leakage, mechanical stability, etc., are also essen-
tial for design considerations. Interdisciplinary cooperation in
research is encouraged to realize the full integration of MSCs
with energy harvesters and wireless modules. These novel self-
powering designs and systems will start a new era for next
generation microelectronics.
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Caiwei Shen received the B.S. degree in elec-
tronic engineering and the M.S. degree in microelec-
tronics from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,
in 2010 and 2013, respectively. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering
with Prof. L. Lin’s Group, University of California
at Berkeley. His research interests mainly focus on
MEMS-based supercapacitors and nanomaterials for
energy storage and electronics.
Sixing Xu received the B.S. degree from the
Department of Microelectronics, Tsinghua Univer-
sity, Beijing, China, in 2015. He is currently
pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the Institute of
Microelectronics, Beijing, China. His research inter-
ests include on-chip micro supercapacitors and low-
dimensional nanomaterials for micro supercapacitors
electrodes.
Yingxi Xie received the bachelor’s and Ph.D.
degrees in mechanical engineering from the South
China University of Technology in 2011 and 2017,
respectively. From 2014 to 2017, he served as a
Graduate Student Researcher with the Mechanical
Engineering Department, University of California at
Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
His recent research interests include micro/flexible
supercapacitors, nanotechnology, fiber materials and
their composites, and functional micro structures.
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Mohan Sanghadasa was with the Faculty of Uni-
versity of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH), for 12 years.
He is currently a Senior Research Scientist with
the AMRDEC, U.S. Army. He also leads research
programs on the development of nanotechnology
enhanced sensors and energy storage systems. Dur-
ing his academic career, he has also conducted
research on optical limiting, optical switching, and
optical pattern recognition. His research activities
with UAH were primarily in the area of nonlinear
optics. His research activities with AMRDEC were
on the development of micro devices, and polymer based modulators for
IFOGs in inertial measurement units.
Xiaohong Wang received the Ph.D. degree from
the Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua
University, Beijing, China, in 1998. She did research
on the electrode materials of micro SOFC in
Prof. P. Fritz’s Group, Stanford University, as a visit-
ing scholar from 2005 to 2006. She also had a short
visiting research experience with The Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology and UCLA,
on micro fuel cells and nano-photodetector devices
in 2001 and 2007, respectively. She is currently
a Full Professor with the Institute of Microelec-
tronics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Her research is on the fields
of MEMS/NEMS design, fabrication, materials, assembly, and integration
technologies, in particular on power-MEMS, such as micro fuel cell, micro
supercapacitors, silicon-based micro lithium batteries, and combining bio
and power MEMS, such as biological microgenerators. She has served as
a TPC member in many international conferences, such as the IEEE-MEMS,
Transducers, the IEEE-NEMS, APCOT, and PowerMEMS. She was the
General Co-chair of the IEEE MEMS 2016. She is also an Associate Editor
of the IEEE/ASME J OURNAL OF M ICROELECTROMECHANICAL S YSTEMS
and the PNG Microsystems and Nanoengineering.
Liwei Lin received the Ph.D. degree in mechan-
ical engineering from the University of California
at Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) in 1993. He joined
UC-Berkeley in 1999, where he is currently a Pro-
fessor with the Mechanical Engineering Department
and a Co-Director with the Berkeley Sensor and
Actuator Center. He has 20 issued U.S. patents in
the area of MEMS/NEMS. His research interests are
in design, modeling and fabrication of micro/nano
structures, micro/nano sensors and micro/nano actu-
ators, mechanical issues in micro/nano systems
including heat transfer, and solid/fluid mechanics and dynamics. He is an
ASME Fellow. He was a recipient of the 1998 NSF CAREER Award for
research in MEMS packaging and the 1999 ASME Journal of Heat Transfer
Best Paper Award for his work on micro scale bubble formation. He led
the effort to establish the MEMS Division in ASME and served as the
Founding Chairman of the Executive Committee from 2004 to 2005. He was
the general Co-Chair of the IEEE 24th international conference on Micro
Electro Mechanical Systems in 2011. He currently serves as a Subject Editor
of the IEEE/ASME J OURNAL OF M ICROELECTROMECHANICAL S YSTEMS
and the North and South America Editor of the Sensors and Actuators–A
Physical.