Phosphorus-Doped Nickel Oxide Micro-Supercapacitor: Unleashing the Power of Energy Storage for Miniaturized...

For an uninterrupted self-powered network, the requirement of miniaturized energy storage device is of utmost importance. This study explores the potential utilization of phosphorus-doped nickel oxide (P-NiO) to design highly efficient durable micro-supercapacitors. The introduction of P as a dopant serves to enhance the electrical conductivity of bare NiO, leading to 11-fold augmentation in volumetric capacitance to 841.92 Fcm^-3 followed by significant enhancement of energy and power density from 6.71 to 42.096 mWhcm^-3 and 0.47 to 1.046 Wcm^-3, respectively. Theoretical calculations used to determine the adsorption energy of OH- ions, revealing higher in case of bare NiO (1.52 eV) as compared to phosphorus-doped NiO (0.64 eV) leading to high electrochemical energy storage performance. The as-designed micro-supercapacitor (MSC) device demonstrates a facile integration with the photovoltaic system for renewable energy storage and smooth transfer to external loads for enlightening the blue LED for ≈1 min. The choice of P-NiO/Ni not only contributes to cost reduction but also ensures minimal lattice mismatch at the interface facilitating high durability up to 15 K cycles along with capacitive retention of ≈100% and coulombic efficiency of 93%. Thus, the heterostructure unveils the possibilities of exploring miniaturized energy storage devices for portable electronics.