Electrochemically activated carbon micro-electrode arrays for electrochemical micro-capacitors

Interdigrated carbon micro-electrode arrays for micro-capacitors are fabricated through the carbon microelectromechanical systems (C-MEMS) technique which is based on the carbonization of patterned photoresist To improve the capacitive behavior electrochemical activation is performed on carbon micro-electrode arrays Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge results demonstrate that the electrochemical activation effectively increaes the capacitance of the micro-electrode arrays by three orders of magnitude Although the charge-discharge experiments show the non-ideal behavior of micro-capacitors the specific geometric capacitance reaches as high is 75 mF cm(-2) at a scan rate of 5 mV s(-1) after electrochemical activation for 30 min The capacitance loss is less than 13% after 1000 CV cycles These results indicate that electrochemically activated C-MEMS micro-electrode arrays are promising candidates for on-chip electrochemical micro capacitor application (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved