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Tunable capacitance in all-inkjet-printed nanosheet heterostructures

Heterostructures constructed from two-dimensional building blocks have shown promise for field-effect transistors, memory devices, photosensors and other electronic applications1,2. 2D nanosheet crystals can be constructed into multilayer heterostructures using layer-by-layer methods3, but that method cannot be used to fabricate large-scale and thick heterostructures, due to the time-consuming nature and low efficiency of the process. An alternative approach to deposit different two-dimensional materials is by inkjet printing4-7. Here we show the fabrication of a nanosheet supercapacitor by inkjet printing Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets as electrodes, and graphene oxide nanosheets as solid-state electrolyte. The free water molecules trapped between graphene oxide sheets facilitate proton movement through the layered solid electrolyte8. The as-made supercapacitor shows high areal capacitance, good cycling stability and high areal energy and power densities comparable with existing printed supercapacitors. Moreover, the specific capacitance can be increased further by addition of liquid electrolytes.