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Template-Assisted Hydrothermal Growth of Aligned Zinc Oxide Nanowires for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Applications.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Sanchez-Jimenez, PE 
Datta, A 
Boughey, FL 
Whiter, RA 

Abstract

A flexible and robust piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) based on a polymer-ceramic nanocomposite structure has been successfully fabricated via a cost-effective and scalable template-assisted hydrothermal synthesis method. Vertically aligned arrays of dense and uniform zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires (NWs) with high aspect ratio (diameter ∼250 nm, length ∼12 μm) were grown within nanoporous polycarbonate (PC) templates. The energy conversion efficiency was found to be ∼4.2%, which is comparable to previously reported values for ZnO NWs. The resulting NG is found to have excellent fatigue performance, being relatively immune to detrimental environmental factors and mechanical failure, as the constituent ZnO NWs remain embedded and protected inside the polymer matrix.

Description

Keywords

ZnO nanowires, energy harvesting, hydrothermal synthesis, nanogenerators, piezoelectric effect

Journal Title

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1944-8244
1944-8252

Volume Title

8

Publisher

ACS
Sponsorship
European Research Council (639526)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (702868)
The Royal Society (dh110046)
EPSRC (1352598)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M010589/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/H019324/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/G037221/1)
The authors thank Yeonsik Choi for discussions and experimental support. S.K.-N., C.O., and A.D. are grateful for financial support from the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant (Grant no. ERC-2014-STG-639526, NANOGEN). F.L.B. and R.A.W. thank the EPSRC Cambridge NanoDTC, EP/G037221/1, for studentship funding. P.S.J. acknowledges the support of TEP-1900 and Talentia Postdoc Program, cofunded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (COFUND Grant Agreement 267226) and the Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment of the Junta de Andalucía. S-L.S acknowledges support through the EPSRC grant EP/M010589/1