Highly sensitive stretchable transparent piezoelectric nanogenerators

Abstract

Here we report a new type of stretchable transparent piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) using an organic piezoelectric material consisting of poly(vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE)] sandwiched with mobility-modified chemical vapor deposition-grown graphene electrodes by ferroelectric polarization into P(VDF-TrFE). This new type of NG has a very high sensitivity and mechanical durability with fully flexible, rollable, stretchable, foldable, and twistable properties. We also investigated the mobility-modified graphene electrodes with ferroelectric P(VDF-TrFE) remnant polarization, and a mechanism is proposed for switching the mobility of the carriers by the ferroelectric remnant polarization. Upon exposure to the same input sound pressure, the measured output performance of the stretchable NG with a thin polydimethylsiloxane stretchable rubber template is up to 30 times that of a normal NG with a plastic substrate. Upon exposure to an air flow at the same speed, the measured output voltage from the stretchable NG is about 8 times larger than that of the normal NG.