Lattice Strain Induced Remarkable Enhancement in Piezoelectric Performance of ZnO-Based Flexible Nanogenerators

In this work, by employing halogen elements (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine) as dopant we demonstrate a unique strategy to enhance the output performance of ZnO-based flexible piezoelectric nanogenerators. For a halogen-doped ZnO nanowire film, dopants and doping concentration dependent lattice strain along the ZnO c-axis are established and confirmed by the EDS, XRD, and HRTEM analysis. Although lattice strain induced charge separation was theoretically proposed, it has not been experimentally investigated for wurtzite structured ZnO nanomaterials. Tuning the lattice strain from compressive to tensile state along the ZnO c-axis can be achieved by a substitution of halogen dopant from fluorine to other halogen elements due to the ionic size difference between dopants and oxygen. With its focus on a group of nonmetal element induced lattice strain in ZnO-based nanomaterials, this work paves the way for enhancing the performance of wurtzite-type piezoelectric semiconductor nanomaterials via lattice strain strategy which can be employed to construct piezoelectric nanodevices with higher efficiency in a cost-effective manner.