Cooperativity in the enhanced piezoelectric response of polymer nanowires

TL;DR

This paper investigates how arrays of polymer nanowires exhibit significantly enhanced piezoelectric responses due to cooperative electromechanical interactions, providing insights for designing better nano-generators and sensors.

Contribution

It reveals the cooperative effect among nanowires enhances piezoelectric output and offers new design guidelines for nano-electromechanical devices.

Findings

Single nanowires generate 0.45 mV at 2 mN load.

Dense arrays produce voltages two orders of magnitude higher.

Numerical models confirm cooperative electromechanical interactions.

Abstract

We provide a detailed insight into piezoelectric energy generation from arrays of polymer nanofibers. For sake of comparison, we firstly measure individual poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFe)) fibers at well-defined levels of compressive stress. Under an applied load of 2 mN, single nanostructures generate a voltage of 0.45 mV. We show that under the same load conditions, fibers in dense arrays exhibit a voltage output higher by about two orders of magnitude. Numerical modelling studies demonstrate that the enhancement of the piezoelectric response is a general phenomenon associated to the electromechanical interaction among adjacent fibers, namely a cooperative effect depending on specific geometrical parameters. This establishes new design rules for next piezoelectric nano-generators and sensors.