Enhanced stability of piezoelectric nanogenerator based on GaN/V2O5 core-shell nanowires with capacitive contact

Abstract

Enhanced stability of a piezoelectric nanogenerator (PNG) was demonstrated using c- and m-axis GaN/V2O5 core–shell nanowires (NWs) by analyzing the capacitive coupling of the PNG’s output. The NW array grown on GaN thin film was embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix, following which the matrix was transferred to an indium (In)-coated PET substrate for achieving superior flexibility of the PNG. The stability of the PNG was enhanced by holding the NW PDMS composite with a PDMS polymer as a bonding material on the PET substrate. The inserted PDMS layer improved the lifetime of the PNG, however, because of the insulating nature of PDMS, the piezoelectric output of GaN NWs was coupled capacitively to In contact on PET substrate and it resulted in a slight degradation of piezoelectric output due to the voltage drop across the bottom capacitive contact. The maximum piezoelectric current was 64 nA and output voltage was 11.9 V from the PNG with c-axis NWs. While the PNG with direct bottom contact exhibited 57% output reduction after 72 000 operation cycles, the PNG with capacitive contact did not show any degradation in stability even after 150 000 cycles.