Three-dimensional thin-film Li-ion microbatteries for autonomous MEMS

Autonomous MEMS require similarly miniaturized power sources. In this paper, we present the first working three-dimensional (3-D) rechargeable Li-ion thin-film microbattery technology that is compatible with MEMS requirements. The technology has been developed, and full 3-D cells have been manufactured on both glass and silicon substrates. Our 3-D microbatteries have a sandwich-like structure of conformal thin-film electrodes, electrolyte and current collectors. The films are deposited sequentially on all available surfaces of a perforated substrate (e.g., silicon or a glass microchannel plate or "MCP") using wet chemistry. The substrate has thousands of high-aspect ratio holes per square cm, thereby providing more than an order of magnitude increase in surface area per given footprint (original 2-D substrate area). The full 3-D cell consists of a Ni cathode current collector, a MoO_yS_z cathode, a hybrid polymer electrolyte (HPE) and a lithiated graphite anode that also serves as anode current collector. One 3-D cell with a roughly 1-μm-thick cathode ran at C/10 to 2C charge/discharge rates and room temperature for 200 cycles with 0.2% per cycle capacity loss and about 100% Faradaic efficiency. The cell exhibited a capacity of 2 mAh/cm², about 30 times higher than the capacity of a similarly built planar (2-D) cell with the same footprint and same cathode thickness.