Miniaturized accelerometers are necessary for evaluating the performance of small devices, such as haptics, robotics and simulators. In this study, we fabricated miniaturized accelerometers using well-aligned ZnO nanowires. The layer of ZnO nanowires is used for active piezoelectric layer of the accelerometer, and copper was chosen as a head mass. Seedless and refresh hydrothermal synthesis met...

This paper presents a cascade-type compact hybrid energy cell (CHEC) that is capable of individually and concurrently harvesting solar and strain energies. The cell is made up of an n-p homojunction nanowire (NW)-based piezoelectric nanogenerator and a nanocrystalline/amorphous-Si:H single junction cell. Under optical illumination of 10 mW/cm and mechanical vibration of 3 m/s at 3 Hz frequency,...

We report the first flexible hybrid energy cell that is capable of simultaneously or individually harvesting thermal, mechanical, and solar energies to power some electronic devices. For having both the pyroelectric and piezoelectric properties, a polarized poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) film-based nanogenerator (NG) was used to harvest thermal and mechanical energies. Using aligned ZnO nanow...

ZnO has been extensively studied by virtue of its remarkably high piezoelectric responses, especially in nanowire forms. Currently, the high piezoelectricity of wurtzite ZnO is understood in terms of the covalent-bonding interaction between Zn 3d and O 2p orbitals. However, the Zn 3d orbitals are not capable of forming hybridized orbitals with the O 2pz orbitals since the Zn ion is characterize...

A high-performance flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator (PNG) is fabricated by a direct writing method, which acquires both patterned piezoelectric structure and aligned piezoelectric nanowires simultaneously. The voltage output of the as-prepared PNG is nearly 400% compared with that of the traditional spin-coated device due to the effective utilization of stress. This facile printing approach...

In this paper, the scattering of a plane monochromatic electromagnetic wave from a nanowire with circular cross-section in the transverse electric (TE) mode is simulated using the well-known Stratton-Chu surface integral equations. For an ordinary dielectric nanowire the refraction phenomenon is nicely simulated. In the case of a plasmonic nanowire no sign of surface plasmon excitation and prop...

We have demonstrated an innovative approach to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy by piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays. The mechanism of the nanogenerator (NG) relies on the coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting dual properties of ZnO as well as the elegant rectifying function of the Schottky barrier formed between the metal tip and the NW. Alexe et al. have rec...

Piezoelectric actuators (PEAs) have been widely used in micro- and nanopositioning applications due to their fine resolution, rapid responses, and large actuating forces. However, a major deficiency of PEAs is that their accuracy is seriously limited by hysteresis. This paper presents adaptive model predictive control technique for reducing hysteresis in PEAs based on autoregressive exogenous m...

A complete study based on advanced atomic force microscopy electrical mode called scanning spreading resistance (SSRM) is carried out a series of samples zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires grown by chemical bath deposition with different doping concentrations using gallium (Ga). The concentration free charge carriers determined through SSRM signal calibration specific molecular beam epitaxy-grown multi...