Wet chemical-processed nanostructured bismuth selenide thin films for electrochemical supercapacitors

Bismuth selenide (Bi 2 Se 3 ) thin films have been grown on stainless steel (SS) substrate by using successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) at room temperature to serve as a supercapacitive electrode. Structural, surface morphological, and wettability studies have been performed to obtain a correlation between the morphological and crystalline characteristics with the supercapacitive electrochemical performance. Synthesized thin film exhibits irregular spherical shape and crystallize in rhombohedral structure. In a three-electrode cell configuration using 0.5 M KOH as electrolyte, well-optimized Bi 2 Se 3 /SS exhibited areal capacitances of 114 mF cm −2 at 10 mV/s and 20.4 mF cm −2 at 1.1 mA cm −2 with a cyclic stability of 122.8% after 400 CV cycles, indicating a potential candidature of formed electrode towards supercapacitor applications.