We report successful deposition of nitrogen-doped amorphous carbon films to realize high-power core-shell supercapacitor electrodes. A catalyst-free method is proposed to deposit large-area stable, highly conformal and highly conductive nitrogen-doped amorphous carbon (a-C:N) films by means of a direct-current plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique (DC-PECVD). This approach exploits C2H2 and N2 gases as the sources of carbon and nitrogen constituents and can be applied to various micro and nanostructures. Although as-deposited a-C:N films have a porous surface, their porosity can be significantly improved through a modification process consisting of Ni-assisted annealing and etching steps. The electrochemical analyses demonstrated the superior performance of the modified a-C:N as a supercapacitor active material, where specific capacitance densities as high as 42 F/g and 8.5 mF/cm2 (45 F/cm3) on silicon microrod arrays were achieved. Furthermore, this supercapacitor electrode showed less than 6% degradation of capacitance over 5000 cycles of a galvanostatic charge-discharge test. It also exhibited a relatively high energy density of 2.3 × 103 Wh/m3 (8.3 × 106 J/m3) and ultra-high power density of 2.6 × 108 W/m3 which is among the highest reported values.

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We report on the hydrogen-assisted deep reactive ion etching of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films deposited using radio-frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD). High aspect-ratio vertical and 3D amorphous silicon features, with the desired control over the shaping of the sidewalls, in micro and nano scales, were fabricated in ordered arrays. The suitable adhesion of amorphous Si film to the underlayer allows one to apply deep micro- and nano-machining to these layers. By means of a second deposition of amorphous silicon on highly curved 3D structures and subsequent etching, the fabrication of amorphous silicon rings is feasible. In addition to photolithography, nanosphere colloidal lithography and electron beam lithography were exploited to realize ultra-small features of amorphous silicon. We have also investigated the optical properties of fabricated hexagonally patterned a-Si nanowire arrays on glass substrates and demonstrated their high potential as active layers for solar cells. This etching process presents an inexpensive method for the formation of highly featured arrays of vertical and 3D amorphous silicon rods on both glass and silicon substrates, suitable for large-area applications.