Area-Selective Growth of Zinc Oxide Nanowire Arrays for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting

oleh: Frank Eric Boye Anang, Xuanwei Wei, Jiushuai Xu, Markys Cain, Zhi Li, Uwe Brand, Erwin Peiner

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2024-02-01

Deskripsi

In this work, we present the area-selective growth of zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays on patterned surfaces of a silicon (Si) substrate for a piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG). ZnO NW arrays were selectively grown on patterned surfaces of a Si substrate using a devised microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-compatible chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The fabricated devices measured a maximum peak output voltage of ~7.9 mV when a mass of 91.5 g was repeatedly manually placed on them. Finite element modeling (FEM) of a single NW using COMSOL Multiphysics at an applied axial force of 0.9 nN, which corresponded to the experimental condition, resulted in a voltage potential of −6.5 mV. The process repeated with the same pattern design using a layer of SU-8 polymer on the NWs yielded a much higher maximum peak output voltage of ~21.6 mV and a corresponding peak power density of 0.22 µW/cm<sup>3</sup>, independent of the size of the NW array. The mean values of the measured output voltage and FEM showed good agreement and a nearly linear dependence on the applied force on a 3 × 3 µm<sup>2</sup> NW array area in the range of 20 to 90 nN.