A novel piezoelectric ZnO nanogenerator on flexible metal alloy substrate

In this paper, we report a novel piezoelectric ZnO nanogenerator on flexible metal alloy substrate (Phynox alloy) for energy harvesting and sensing applications. The vertically aligned ZnO nanowires are sandwiched between Au electrodes. The aligned growth of ZnO nanowires have been successfully synthesized on Au coated metal alloy substrate by hydrothermal method at low temperature (95±1 ^°C). The as-synthesized vertically aligned ZnO nanowires were characterized using FE-SEM. Further, PMMA is spin coated over the aligned ZnO nanowires for the purpose of their long term stability. The fabricated nanogenerator is of size 30mm × 6mm. From energy harvesting point of view, the response of the nanogenerator due to finger tip impacts ranges from 0.9 V to 1.4V. Also for sensing application, the maximum output voltage response of the nanogenerator is found to be 2.86V due to stainless steel (SS) ball impact and 0.92 V due to plastic ball impact.

I. Introduction

Powering nano scale devices is the main challenge in the present day nanotechnology world. The potential power sources for nano devices are vibrational energy, mechanical energy, solar energy, hydraulic energy [1]. Moreover the miniaturization of portable electronic devices is very difficult without batteries. The problems associated with the use of batteries include limitation in the size of the device and frequent recharging process. However in place of batteries, if we adopt nanogenerators, mechanical energy is always available in and around us for powering these nano devices. Nanogenerator is a device which converts random mechanical energy into electrical energy to drive nano scale level devices.