Effective Piezoelectric Response of Substrate-Integrated ZnO Nanowire Array Devices on Galvanized Steel

Abstract

Harvesting waste energy through electromechanical coupling in practical devices requires combining device design with the development of synthetic strategies for large-area controlled fabrication of active piezoelectric materials. Here, we show a facile route to the large-area fabrication of ZnO nanostructured arrays using commodity galvanized steel as the Zn precursor as well as the substrate. The ZnO nanowires are further integrated within a device construct and the effective piezoelectric response is deduced based on a novel experimental approach involving induction of stress in the nanowires through pressure wave propagation along with phase-selective lock-in detection of the induced current. The robust methodology for measurement of the effective piezoelectric coefficient developed here allows for interrogation of piezoelectric functionality for the entire substrate under bending-type deformation of the ZnO nanowires.

Orthogonal Wettability of Hierarchically Textured Metal Meshes as a Means of Separating Water/Oil Emulsions

“…The magnified SEM images in Figure c and d indicate that the nanotetrapods define a “bed of nails”. The Raman spectrum depicted in Figure e is consistent with stabilization of hexagonal ZnO and the symmetry assignments of the modes are indicated in this figure . The XRD pattern of the ZnO tetrapods depicted in Figure f can be indexed to Joint Committee on Powder Diffraction Standards (JCPDS) # 36–1451, indicating the formation of phase‐pure ZnO in the hexagonal zincite phase.…”

“…3 × 3 mm in size. The Zn substrates then placed onto a stainless steel mesh and placed within a 1″ diameter quartz tube, which, in turn, was placed within a tube furnace (Lindburg/BlueM) . The substrates were heated at a rate of 43 °C min −1 with the ends of the tube furnace open to achieve a maximum temperature of 950 °C.…”

Tailoring Thin‐Film Piezoelectrics for Crash Sensing

“…Furthermore, ZnO thin films can be deposited on a large variety of substrate materials as ZnO is a compositionally simple binary‐oxide material . ZnO thin film is biocompatible and also possess the potential to tune the Fermi surfaces at metal contacts . Recently, we have successfully demonstrated piezoelectric ZnO thin films in wide‐ranging applications, such as a gas flow‐rate sensor, an impact sensor for nondestructive material discrimination, and microactuation .…”

Cation exchange assisted low temperature chemical synthesis of ZnO@Ag2S core–shell nanoparticles and their photo-catalytic properties

“…Zinc oxide (ZnO) NPs as a cheap semiconductor with a wide direct band gap (3.37 eV) at room temperature [5] showed a potential for the use as photocatalyst [6], photodetectors [7], gas sensors [8], piezoelectric sensors [9] and ultraviolet laser [10]. Recently, it was found that surface coating with different semiconductors can dramatically change the properties of ZnO nano-crystallites.…”