Supercapacitors

Energy storage that charges and discharges far faster than a battery.

China leads supercapacitors research, with 46.3% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; India is second with 13.9%.

FirstChina46.3%

SecondIndia13.9%

3.3×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Highlight a country

Standings

1CNChina46.3%2INIndia13.9%3KRSouth Korea7.3%4SASaudi Arabia3.6%5PKPakistan3.4%6USUnited States2.3%7IRIran1.9%8EGEgypt1.4%9–11TWTaiwan1.3%9–11AUAustralia1.3%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 2,949 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

China

Everyone else, on a larger scale

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-area	Papers	First	Second	Third
Metal oxide and hydroxide electrodes	500	CNChina38.3%	INIndia21.0%	KRSouth Korea7.5%
Porous and biomass-derived carbon electrodes	481	CNChina61.1%	INIndia7.9%	KRSouth Korea4.3%
MXene-based electrodes	326	CNChina44.3%	INIndia13.1%	KRSouth Korea8.1%
Flexible, wearable, micro and structural supercapacitors	313	CNChina62.0%	KRSouth Korea7.3%	USUnited States4.5%
Metal sulfide, phosphide, nitride and other compound electrodes	286	CNChina40.6%	INIndia14.0%	KRSouth Korea10.6%
Mechanisms, electrolytes, modelling and general reviews	232	CNChina30.7%	INIndia21.7%	KRSouth Korea7.0%
Hybrid and metal-ion capacitors (incl. zinc-ion)	208	CNChina60.2%	KRSouth Korea11.9%	INIndia6.3%
Metal-organic and covalent-organic framework materials	207	CNChina43.4%	INIndia15.2%	KRSouth Korea8.5%
Graphene and carbon-nanotube electrodes	141	CNChina32.2%	INIndia19.6%	KRSouth Korea8.0%
Conducting-polymer electrodes	139	CNChina31.3%	INIndia22.1%	PKPakistan4.3%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change

CNChina 51.0%40.5%−10.5 pts

INIndia 12.1%16.2%+4.1 pts

KRSouth Korea 7.3%7.3%+0.0 pts

SASaudi Arabia 2.5%4.9%+2.4 pts

PKPakistan 2.8%4.2%+1.5 pts

USUnited States 2.6%1.8%−0.8 pts

IRIran 1.7%2.2%+0.5 pts

EGEgypt 1.4%1.4%−0.0 pts

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 1,633 papers in 2021–2023, 1,316 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (5,314), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

CNChina38.1%of 2026 papers have an author here
INIndia30.4%of 2026 papers have an author here
SASaudi Arabia11.2%of 2026 papers have an author here
KRSouth Korea10.4%of 2026 papers have an author here
PKPakistan7.4%of 2026 papers have an author here

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess

CNChina 63.4%48.0%+15.4

INIndia 33.0%22.4%+10.6

KRSouth Korea 15.9%11.1%+4.8

SASaudi Arabia 22.6%7.8%+14.8

Based on up to 100 of each country's most cited single-country papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

1KRYeungnam University1.6%
2CNNanjing Forestry University1.2%
3CNNorth University of China0.9%
4CNXinjiang University0.9%
5CNJiangsu University0.8%
6KRJeonbuk National University0.8%
7CNChongqing University0.8%
8CNShandong University of Science and Technology0.8%
9INShivaji University0.8%
10CNChinese Academy of SciencesGovernment lab0.7%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

Sector	All	CN	IN	KR
Universities	90.7%	92.0%	93.8%	95.5%
Research facilities	6.7%	5.2%	4.8%	3.4%
Government labs	2.0%	2.3%	1.2%	0%
Companies	0.2%	0.3%	0%	0.2%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

40.6% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

INKRIndia with South Korea165
PKSAPakistan with Saudi Arabia152
KRSASouth Korea with Saudi Arabia112
INSAIndia with Saudi Arabia110
CNUSChina with United States94

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

A review on the recent advances in hybrid supercapacitors
Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2021IN
1,015citations
Supercapacitors as next generation energy storage devices: Properties and applications
Energy, 2022AEEGGB
952citations
Effects of oxygen-containing functional groups on carbon materials in supercapacitors: A review
Materials & Design, 2023CNSGUS
760citations
Untangling the respective effects of heteroatom-doped carbon materials in batteries, supercapacitors and the ORR to design high performance materials
Energy & Environmental Science, 2021CN
759citations
Supercapacitor and electrochemical techniques: A brief review
Results in Chemistry, 2023IN
681citations

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

supercapacitor OR ultracapacitor OR pseudocapacitor OR pseudocapacitance OR "electrochemical capacitor" OR "double-layer capacitor"

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: Supercapacitor Materials and Fabrication; MXene and MAX Phase Materials; Conducting polymers and applications; Graphene research and applications; Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025: 29,468
In the top 10%: 2,949
In the top 1%: 296
Countries with credit: 86
Credit with no known country: 2.7%

Every one of the 3,400 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 98 were left out as not about supercapacitors

The most cited of those left out:

Flexible MXene‐Based Composites for Wearable Devices544 citations
Recent Advances in Laser‐Induced Graphene: Mechanism, Fabrication, Properties, and Applications in Flexible Electronics434 citations
Applications of nanotechnology in smart textile industry: A critical review411 citations
MXenes: Synthesis, Optical Properties, and Applications in Ultrafast Photonics328 citations
Recent Trends and Developments in Conducting Polymer Nanocomposites for Multifunctional Applications309 citations
MXenes: An Emerging Platform for Wearable Electronics and Looking Beyond239 citations
MXenes as Emerging Materials: Synthesis, Properties, and Applications216 citations
Interfacial assembly of two-dimensional MXenes180 citations
Evolution of graphene oxide (GO)-based nanohybrid materials with diverse compositions: an overview178 citations
Printable, flexible, breathable and sweatproof bifunctional sensors based on an all-nanofiber platform for fully decoupled pressure–temperature sensing application162 citations
Applications of MXene‐Based Single‐Atom Catalysts161 citations
Novel trends in conductive polymeric nanocomposites, and bionanocomposites158 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

Read the method