Energy harvesting technologies that are engineered to miniature sizes, while still increasing the power delivered to wireless electronics, (1, 2) portable devices, stretchable electronics, (3) and implantable biosensors, (4, 5) are strongly desired. Piezoelectric nanowire- and nanofiber-based generators have potential uses for powering such devices through a conversion of mechanical energy into...

We studied the dependence of the output of the piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) on the inclining orientation of the ZnO nanowire arrays (NWAs). The oblique-aligned NWAs were grown by combing a modified oblique-angle sputtering technique for preparing the seed layer and hydrothermal growth. The piezoelectric output of the NWAs was studied by scanning the tip of an atomic force microscope along f...

We have developed a simple, cost-effective, and scalable approach to fabricate a piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) with stretchable and flexible characteristics using BaTiO3 nanotubes, which were synthesized by the hydrothermal method. The NG was fabricated by making a composite of the nanotubes with polymer poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). The peak open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current o...

DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201301329 Energy conversion and storage, [ 1–3 ] as the two most important technologies for energy, are usually two distinct processes that are performed by using two different and separated physical units, such as a piezoelectric nanogenerator and lithium-ion battery. [ 4–9 ] Recently, we presented a novel fundamental mechanism that directly hybridizes the two processes into ...

IO N The harvesting of energy from the environment dates back to the age of the windmill and the waterwheel. Their modern counterparts are hydro-power plants, wind farms, solar farms, and more recently, novel piezoelectric devices [ 1 ] for power generation from mechanical vibration. [ 2 ] Fully utilizing power sources such as light, [ 3–5 ] thermal, and mechanical energy is of great importance...

A high-yield solution-processed ultrathin (<10 nm) trigonal tellurium (t-Te) nanowire (NW) is introduced as a new class of piezoelectric nanomaterial with a six-fold higher piezoelectric constant compared to conventional ZnO NWs for a high-volume power-density nanogenerator (NG). While determining the energy-harvesting principle in a NG consisting of t-Te NW, it is theoretically and experimenta...

Energy generation and energy storage are two distinct processes that are usually accomplished using two separated units designed on the basis of different physical principles, such as piezoelectric nanogenerator and Li-ion battery; the former converts mechanical energy into electricity, and the latter stores electric energy as chemical energy. Here, we introduce a fundamental mechanism that dir...

Piezoelectric nanowires are promising building blocks in nanoelectronic, sensing, actuation and nanogenerator systems. In spite of great progress in synthesis methods, quantitative mechanical and electromechanical characterization of these nanostructures is still limited. In this article, the state-of-the art in experimental and computational studies of mechanical and electromechanical properti...