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Self-adhesive electrode applied to ZnO nanorod-based piezoelectric nanogenerators

Pelin Yilmaz, Peter Clarke Greenwood, Simone Meroni, Joel Troughton, Petr Novak, Xuan Li, Trystan Watson Orcid Logo, Joe Briscoe

Smart Materials and Structures

Swansea University Author: Trystan Watson Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1088/1361-665X/ab255b

Abstract

ZnO nanorod-based piezoelectric devices have gained wide attention in energy harvesting systems as they can be processed at low temperatures onto flexible plastic substrates, giving a good potential for low cost. However, the vacuum-evaporated, precious metal contacts remain a high-cost element of t...

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Published in: Smart Materials and Structures
ISSN: 0964-1726 1361-665X
Published: 2019
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa51380
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Abstract: ZnO nanorod-based piezoelectric devices have gained wide attention in energy harvesting systems as they can be processed at low temperatures onto flexible plastic substrates, giving a good potential for low cost. However, the vacuum-evaporated, precious metal contacts remain a high-cost element of the devices. This paper discusses the use of transparent conductive adhesives (TCAs) as an alternative top contact that is free from both vacuum-evaporation and precious metals. TCA films of various thicknesses were tape-cast onto nickel microgrid on PET substrates and adhered using low-pressure cold-lamination to bond the adhesive component of the TCA to piezoelectric generators with the final device structure of PET/ITO/ZnO-seed/ZnO-nanorods/CuSCN/PEDOT:PSS/TCA. The piezoelectric performances of the devices were compared by measuring output voltage in open-circuit and maximum power output across a range of resistive loads. The voltage output was observed to rise with increasing TCA thickness, reaching a maximum value of 0.72 V generated with 110 µm of TCA as top contact. However, the higher resistance due to increased TCA thickness led to decreased power output; a maximum calculated power of 0.25 μW was obtained from the device with the thinnest TCA layer of 22 µm. Finally, the performance of piezoelectric nanogenerators with TCA contacts were compared to a control device with an evaporated gold contact.
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering

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