Publications

A flexible and wide pressure range triboelectric sensor array was constructed for real-time pressure detection and distribution mapping.

Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have shown exciting applications in mechanical energy harvesting and self‐powered sensing. Aiming at commercial applications, cost reduction and simplification of TENG structures are of great interest. In this work, a lightweight TENG based on the integration of polymer nanowires and a carbon sponge, which serves both as the substrate and an electrode, are reported. Because of the low density of the carbon sponge and the filmy nanowires, the device exhibits a total mass of less than 0.1 g for a volume of 12.5 cm 3 and it produces a short‐circuit current of 6 μA, open‐circuit voltage of 75 V, and a maximum output power of 0.28 W kg −1 under light finger tapping. The device can linearly measure the acceleration at a detection limit down to 0.25 m s −2 and for a detection range from 0.25 m s −2 to 10.0 m s −2 .

A novel and scalable self-charging power textile is realized by combining yarn supercapacitors and fabric triboelectric nanogenerators as energy-harvesting devices.

Tactile information is efficiently captured and processed through a complex sensory system combined with mechanoreceptors, neurons, and synapses in human skin. Synapses are essential for tactile signal transmission between pre/post-neurons. However, developing an electronic device that integrates the functions of tactile information sensation and transmission remains a challenge. Here, we present a piezotronic synapse based on a single GaN microwire that can simultaneously achieve the capabilities of strain sensing and synaptic functions. The piezotronic effect in the wurtzite GaN is introduced to strengthen synaptic weight updates (e.g., 330% enhancement at a compressive stress of −0.36%) with pulse trains. A high gauge factor for strain sensing (ranging from 0 to −0.81%) of about 736 is also obtained. Remarkably, the piezotronic synapse enables the neuromorphic hardware achievement of the perception and processing of tactile information in a single micro/nanowire system, demonstrating an advance in biorealistic artificial intelligence systems.

Although textile-based triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are highly promising because they scavenge energy from their working environment to sustainably power wearable/mobile electronics, the challenge of simultaneously possessing the qualities of cloth remains. In this work, we propose a strategy for TENG textiles as power cloths in which core–shell yarns with core conductive fibers as the electrode and artificial polymer fibers or natural fibrous materials tightly twined around core conductive fibers are applied as the building blocks. The resulting TENG textiles are comfortable, flexible, and fashionable, and their production processes are compatible with industrial, large-scale textile manufacturing. More importantly, the comfortable TENG textiles demonstrate excellent washability and tailorability and can be fully applied in further garment processing. TENG textiles worn under the arm or foot have also been demonstrated to scavenge various types of energy from human motion, such as patting, walking, and running. All of these merits of proposed TENG textiles for clothing uses suggest their great potentials for viable applications in wearable electronics or smart textiles in the near future.

Power management strategies are crucial for improving the energy utilization efficiency of triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). However, existing strategies are constrained by the instability of external inputs and the static power...

In this paper, we present a simple, low-cost and flexible hybrid cell that converts individually or simultaneously low-frequency mechanical energy and photon energy into electricity using piezoelectric zinc oxide (ZnO) in conjunction with organic solar cell design. Since the hybrid cell is designed by coupled piezoelectric and photoconductive properties of ZnO, this is a naturally hybrid architecture without crosstalk and an additional assembling process to create multi-type energy scavengers, thus differing from a simple integration of two different energy generators. It is demonstrated that the behavior of a piezoelectric output is controlled from alternating current (AC) type to direct current (DC)-like type by tailoring mechanical straining processes both in the dark and under light illumination. Based on such controllability of output modes, it is shown that the performance of the hybrid cell is synergistically enhanced by integrating the contribution made by a piezoelectric generator with a solar cell under a normal indoor level of illumination. Our approach clearly demonstrates the potential of the hybrid approach for scavenging multi-type energies whenever and wherever they are available. Furthermore, this work establishes the methodology to harvest solar energy and low-frequency mechanical energies such as body movements, making it possible to produce a promising multi-functional power generator that could be embedded in flexible architectures.