Stamped microbattery electrodes based on self-assembled M13 viruses

Ki Tae Nam; Ryan Wartena; Pil J. Yoo; Forrest W. Liau; Yun Jung Lee; Yet-Ming Chiang; Paula T. Hammond; Angela M. Belcher

doi:10.1073/pnas.0711620105

Edited by Robert H. Austin, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved July 15, 2008 (received for review December 10, 2007)

Abstract

The fabrication and spatial positioning of electrodes are becoming central issues in battery technology because of emerging needs for small scale power sources, including those embedded in flexible substrates and textiles. More generally, novel electrode positioning methods could enable the use of nanostructured electrodes and multidimensional architectures in new battery designs having improved electrochemical performance. Here, we demonstrate the synergistic use of biological and nonbiological assembly methods for fabricating and positioning small battery components that may enable high performance microbatteries with complex architectures. A self-assembled layer of virus-templated cobalt oxide nanowires serving as the active anode material in the battery anode was formed on top of microscale islands of polyelectrolyte multilayers serving as the battery electrolyte, and this assembly was stamped onto platinum microband current collectors. The resulting electrode arrays exhibit full electrochemical functionality. This versatile approach for fabricating and positioning electrodes may provide greater flexibility for implementing advanced battery designs such as those with interdigitated microelectrodes or 3D architectures.

Footnotes

²To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: ychiang{at}mit.edu, hammond{at}mit.edu, or belcher{at}mit.edu
↵¹Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering and SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440–746, Korea.
Author contributions: K.T.N., Y.J.L., Y.-M.C., P.T.H., and A.M.B. designed research; K.T.N., R.W., P.J.Y., and F.W.L. performed research; R.W., P.J.Y., Y.-M.C., and P.T.H. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; K.T.N., R.W., F.W.L., Y.J.L., Y.-M.C., P.T.H., and A.M.B. analyzed data; and K.T.N. and A.M.B. wrote the paper.
This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of Sciences, “Nanomaterials in Biology and Medicine: Promises and Perils,” held April 10–11, 2007, at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. The complete program and audio files of most presentations are available on the NAS web site at www.nasonline.org/nanoprobes.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0711620105/DCSupplemental.
© 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA