Printing –Based Manufacturing of Flexible Ferroelectric Devices for Energy Harvesting Applications

Abstract

Flexible ferroelectric devices have attracted enormous interest in recent years due to their excellent energy harvesting performance.[1, 2] Most of the existing ferroelectric devices have rigid nature and therefore are incompetent for flexible/ wearable electronic applications.[3] Here, we report a flexible ferroelectric device developed by printing the ferroelectric device components on flexible substrates. The 3- D structures of graphene oxide (GO) and poly(vinylidene fluoride- trifluroethylene) [PVDF- TFE] were printed with different designs and configurations to develop an optimum device. The thickness of the printing layers and size of the components were optimized to achieve better device performance. This device exhibits excellent energy harvesting performance with outstanding device flexibility. The better performance of the hybrid material may be due to the high mechanical strength, excellent Young’s modulus, and high dielectric constant of GO. This study suggests the new manufacturing methods and better device design for further development of piezoelectric energy harvesting devices.