Fabrication of flexible reduced graphene oxide/Fe₂O₃ hollow nanospheres based on-chip micro-supercapacitors for integrated photodetecting applications

Micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) as important on-chip micropower sources have attracted considerable attention because of their unique and advantageous design for optimized maximum functionality within a minimized sized chip and excellent mechanical flexibility/stability in miniaturized portable electronic device applications. In this work, we report a novel, high-performance flexible integrated on-chip MSC based on hybrid nanostructures of reduced graphene oxide/Fe₂O₃ hollow nanospheres using a microelectronic photo-lithography technology combined with plasma etching technique. The unique structural design for on-chip MSCs enables high-performance enhancements compared with graphene-only devices, exhibiting high specific capacitances of 11.57 F·cm^-3 at a scan rate of 200 mV·s^-1 and excellent rate capability and robust cycling stability with capacitance retention of 92.08% after 32, 000 charge/discharge cycles. Moreover, the on-chip MSCs exhibit superior flexibility and outstanding stability even after repetition of charge/discharge cycles under different bending states. As-fabricated highly flexible on-chip MSCs can be easily integrated with CdS nanowire-based photodetectors to form a highly compacted photodetecting system, exhibiting comparable performance to devices driven by conventional external energy storage units.