Light-Assisted Energy Storage Devices: Principles, Performance, and Perspectives

Abstract

Various energy storage devices are highly demanded by o ur modern society. The use of solar energy, an important green energy source, is extremely attractive for future energy storage. Recently, photo-assisted energy storage devices have rapidly developed as they efficiently convert and store solar energy, while their configurations are simple and their external energy decline is much reduced. Light-assisted energy storage devices thus provide a potential way to utilize sunlight at a large scale that is both affordable and limitless. Considering rapid development and emerging problems for photo-assisted energy storage devices, this review starts with the fundamentals of batteries and supercapacitors and follows with the state-of-the-art photo-assisted energy storage devices where device components, working principles, types, and practical applications are explained. After the detailed demonstration of some photo-assisted energy storage devices examples, the bottleneck of such light-assisted energy storage devices is discussed and the prospects of the light-assisted rechargeable devices are further outlined.