Pulsed laser deposition of the porous nickel oxide thin film at room temperature for high-rate pseudocapacitive energy storage

This work reports the pulsed laser reactive deposition of the NiO thin film by ablating nickel targets in low-pressure O-2 atmosphere at room temperature. The electrode exhibits a porous structure, which facilitates ion transport in the electrode/electrolyte. When applied as an electrode, the porous NiO film exhibits the high specific capacitance (835 F g(-1) at 1 A g(-1)). Meanwhile, the film exhibits a superb rate capability. At a very high current density of 40 A g(-1) there is more than 59% retention in the capacitance relative to 1 A g(-1). Furthermore, the excellent cycling performance (94% capacitance retention after 1000 cycles) is achieved for the film electrode. These results demonstrate that pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a very promising technique for making the film electrodes for applications in electrochemical energy storage. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.