ZnO nanowire based piezo and photoelectric effects coupled nanogenerator

Abstract

This report describes fabrication of ZnO nanowire based nanogenerator used to simultaneously harvest both light and ambient mechanical vibration. The ZnO nanowires used in this work were grown on p-type Si substrates employing seed mediated low-temperature aqueous solution method. Using the synthesized ZnO nanowire and conducting ITO plate a sandwich type ITO/n-ZnO NW/p-Si cell was fabricated and its ability in simultaneous harvesting of light and mechanical energy has been studied. This design of piezoelectric and photoelectric hybrid nanogenerator is first of this kind of devices ever fabricated to harvest more than one type of ambient energy.