[See Ternary Composite Paper in Media]

With recent advances in technology recently in the areas of wireless sensor networks, portable electronics, and other self-powering devices, the race for miniaturization and simplification of devices calls for energy storage components to be reduced in size. Modern techniques for making batteries and other storage units inhibits progress towards miniaturization. Supercapacitors, essentially highly rated capacitors, can behave as power supplies. Supercapacitors behave like batteries charging and discharging much faster but suffers the same drawbacks as traditional capacitors. Two key factors have historically limited capacitors behaving as power supplies in electronics: surface area of the electrodes and distance between the electrodes. These limitations determine how much capacitance a component has (the higher the surface area and lower the distance between plates, the higher the capacitance) . The paper in question made use of a ternary system of MnO2 nanoneedles, silver nanowires, and reduced graphene oxide to maximize capacitance at the nanoscale. The device also made use of a digital geometry to capitalize on the effects of ballistic electron transfer.