Abstract
Piezoelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) nanowires are of particular interest for energy harvesting as they are ultra-sensitive to small vibrations. Here, a new, cost-effective, and scalable approach to producing PVDF nanowires with strongly enhanced power output is presented. The method combines template-wetting in cylindrical nano-confinement with anisotropic solvent-nonsolvent phase inversion to yield a fully novel nanowire morphology consisting of “sausage-like” strings of nano-domains. Dynamic numerical simulations of the phase inversion reveal the formation of these structures to be subject to a very rich and complex phenomenology. The simulated dependence of the feature size on the degree of confinement agrees with the experimentally observed trend. It is unambiguously demonstrated that the sausage-like nano-generators upsurge the power density to 280% compared to normal nanowires. Finite element modeling explains how the higher deformability of the sausage-like nanostructures gives rise to this significant enhancement in piezoelectric performance.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2001734 |
Journal | Advanced Materials Interfaces |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 5 |
Early online date | 6 Jan 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 9 Mar 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:K.A. and M.H.A. acknowledge the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the funding provided in the framework of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany. M.M.A. would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for their financial support, the Max‐Planck Institute for Polymer Research for technical support, and Prof. Paul W. M. Blom for fruitful discussion.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Advanced Materials Interfaces published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
Funding
K.A. and M.H.A. acknowledge the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the funding provided in the framework of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award, endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany. M.M.A. would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for their financial support, the Max‐Planck Institute for Polymer Research for technical support, and Prof. Paul W. M. Blom for fruitful discussion.
Keywords
- nano-confinement
- nanogenerators
- nanowires
- phase inversion
- piezoelectric
- template-wetting
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering