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

Abstract

AbstractVarious 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.