Unravelling the origin of the capacitance in nanostructured nitrogen-doped carbon - NiO hybrid electrodes deposited with laser

The full knowledge of the charge storage mechanisms occurring in complex composite electrodes is key for straightforward development advanced electrochemical capacitors. In this work, hybrid composed reduced graphene oxide, multiwall carbon nanotubes and NiO nanostructures were fabricated through reactive inverse matrix assisted pulsed laser evaporation technique. Nitrogen doping was carried out by introducing ammonia, urea melamine precursors target. N-doped exhibited a significant capacitance enhancement as compared to non-doped ones. This fact commonly ascribed faradaic mechanisms. However, our structural-compositional studies point change structural configuration composites at nanoscale upon nitrogen functionalization source electrodes’ enhancement. with precursor highest capacitance, associated presence pyridinic N groups that triggered formation high amount defects (vacancies – boundaries) microporosity, not observed samples synthesized other mainly contained pyrrolic-graphitic N.