Semiconductor Contact-Electrification-Dominated Tribovoltaic Effect for Ultrahigh Power Generation

Zhi Zhang; Zhaozheng Wang; Yunkang Chen; Yuan Feng; Sicheng Dong; Han Zhou; Zhong Lin Wang; Chi Zhang

doi:10.1002/adma.202200146

Semiconductor Contact-Electrification-Dominated Tribovoltaic Effect for Ultrahigh Power Generation

Adv Mater. 2022 May;34(20):e2200146. doi: 10.1002/adma.202200146. Epub 2022 Apr 18.

Authors

Zhi Zhang^{1

2}, Zhaozheng Wang^{1

2}, Yunkang Chen^{1

3}, Yuan Feng^{1

3}, Sicheng Dong^{1

2}, Han Zhou^{1

4}, Zhong Lin Wang^{1

2

5}, Chi Zhang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Key Laboratory of Micro-nano Energy and Sensor, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100083, P. R. China.
² School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
³ Center on Nanoenergy Research, School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China.
⁴ School of Mechanical Engineering, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China.
⁵ School of Material Science and Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.

PMID: 35291054
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202200146

Abstract

The semiconductor direct-current triboelectric nanogenerator (SDC-TENG) based on the tribovoltaic effect is promising for developing a new semiconductor energy technology with high power density. Here, the first SDC-TENG built using gallium nitride (GaN) and bismuth telluride (Bi₂ Te₃ ) for ultrahigh-power generation is reported. During the friction process, an additional interfacial electric field is formed by continuous contact electrification (CE), and abundant electron-hole pairs are excited and move directionally to form a junction current that is always internally from Bi₂ Te₃ to GaN, regardless of the semiconductor type. The peak open-circuit voltage can reach up to 40 V and the power density is 11.85 W m^-2 (average value is 9.23 W m^-2 ), which is approximately 200 times higher than that of previous centimeter-level SDC-TENGs. Moreover, compared to traditional polymer TENGs under the same conditions, the average power density is remarkably improved by over 40 times. This study provides the first evidence of CE on the tribovoltaic effect and sets the normalized power density record for TENGs, which demonstrates a great potential of the tribovoltaic effect for energy harvesting and sensing.

Keywords: bismuth telluride; contact-electrification; gallium nitride; semiconductor heterojunctions; triboelectric nanogenerators; tribovoltaic effect.

Abstract

Grants and funding