Stencil-printed Lithium-ion micro batteries for IoT applications

Highlights: • A low-footprint, high-capacity Li-ion battery is designed and developed for MEMS-based sensors. • A facile fabrication process is developed by combining stencil printing and an adhesive based battery sealing method. • Li-ion micro batteries demonstrated a discharge capacity of ~6.4 mAh/cm² and energy density of 23.6 mWh/cm². • The application of Li-ion micro batteries as a power source for integrated electronics is demonstrated. A battery design and fabrication process is demonstrated to make Lithium-ion (Li-ion) microbatteries with high capacity to power IoT devices. The battery consists of printed anode and cathode layers based on graphite and lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) respectively. The active area of the electrodes is scaled down to 1 mm² and the resulting electrochemical performance is evaluated. These miniature batteries demonstrate a significantly higher discharge capacity (6.4 mAh/cm²) and energy density (23.6 mWh/cm²) than thin-film and thick-film, and 3D microbatteries. This work shows a miniaturized Li-ion battery capable of powering a MEMS-based wireless sensor system with peak current requirements as high as 4 mA, demonstrating its effectiveness as a power source for integrated electronics.