title: Template-Assisted Hydrothermal Growth of Aligned Zinc Oxide Nanowires for Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Applications.
abstract: A flexible and robust piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) based on a polymer-ceramic nanocomposite structure has been successfully fabricated via a cost-effective and scalable template-assisted hydrothermal synthesis method. Vertically aligned arrays of dense and uniform zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires (NWs) with high aspect ratio (diameter ∼250 nm, length ∼12 μm) were grown within nanoporous polycarbonate (PC) templates. The energy conversion efficiency was found to be ∼4.2%, which is comparable to previously reported values for ZnO NWs. The resulting NG is found to have excellent fatigue performance, being relatively immune to detrimental environmental factors and mechanical failure, as the constituent ZnO NWs remain embedded and protected inside the polymer matrix.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Canlin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ou
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.|Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Sevilla, C.S.I.C.-Universidad de Sevilla , C. Américo Vespucio n°49, 41092 Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: Pedro E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Sanchez-Jimenez
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Anuja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Datta
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Francesca L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Boughey
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Richard A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Whiter
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Suman-Lata
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Sahonta
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge , 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sohini
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kar-Narayan
keywords: ZnO nanowires; energy harvesting; hydrothermal synthesis; nanogenerators; piezoelectric effect