Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Nanofibers - Hierarchical Nanostructures for Energy Devices - page 142

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CHAPTER 7
Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting
Nanofibers

JIYOUNG CHANG a,b AND LIWEI LIN* b

a Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley,
CA 94720, USA; b Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of
California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
*Email: [e-mail]

7.1 Introduction
After decades of developments in the miniaturization of portable and
wireless devices, new power sources beyond rechargeable batteries have
become important topics for current and future stand-alone devices and
systems. Specifically, ideal power sources should be scalable for the power
demands of various portable devices without the necessity of a recharging
process or replacement. Recent works in the field of nanomaterials have
shown good progress toward self-powered energy sources by scavenging
energy from ambient environments (solar, thermal, mechanical vibration,
etc.). In particular, the use of piezoelectric generators by nanomaterials as a
robust and simple solution for mechanical energy harvesting has attracted a
lot of attention. One of the earliest nanogenerators for possible energy
scavenging applications from mechanical strain utilized piezoelectric zinc
oxide (ZnO) nanowires. 1 By coupling their semiconducting and piezoelectric
properties, mechanical strains can be converted into electricity. In recent
years, numerous research groups have demonstrated results in the field of
mechanical energy scavenging using nanomaterials with different archi-
tectures,

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including: film-based, nanowire-based and nanofiber-based