Nanogenerators toward
self-powered nanosystems

Minbaek Lee, Jinhui Song, Rusen Yang, Guang Zhu, Youfan Hu, Zhong Lin Wang


School of Materials science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of
Technology

The future of nanotechnology research is likely to focus on the areas of
integrating individual nanodevices into a nanosystem that acts like living
species with sensing, communicating, controlling and responding. A nanosystem
requires a nano-power source to make the entire package extremely small and
high performance. The goal is to make self-powered nanosystem that can operate
wirelessly, independently and sustainably. Harvesting energy from the
environment is a choice for powering nanosystems. It is essential to explore
innovative nanotechnologies for converting mechanical energy (such as body
movement, muscle stretching), vibration energy (such as acoustic/ultrasonic
wave), and hydraulic energy (such as body fluid and blood flow) into electric
energy that will be used to power nanodevices without using battery. This is a
key step towards self-powered nanosystems. We have demonstrated an innovative
approach for converting nano-scale mechanical energy into electric energy by
piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays. The technology makes it possible
to harvest energy supplied by mechanical movement/vibration, heart beating,
food steps, noises, light wind. Moreover, self-powered nano-devices have been
fabricated by combining the energy harvesting technology which ensures its
compatibility and perspective. The presentation will be continuously dedicated
to recent developments and improvements of nanogenerators towards self-powered
nano-systems.