2012/04/30 by Ya Yang, Wenxi Guo, Ken C. Pradel +6 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #Charge carrier #Chemistry #Composite material #Dielectric #Electric field #Energy harvesting #Ferroelectricity #Materials science #Nanogenerator #Nanotechnology #Nanowire #Optoelectronics #Perovskite Materials and Applications #Physics #Piezoelectricity #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Power (physics) #Pyroelectricity #Seebeck coefficient #Temperature gradient #Thermal conductivity #Thermodynamics #Thermoelectric effect #Thermoelectric generator #Thermoelectric materials
paper · doi:10.1021/nl3003039
openalex publication_date 2012/04/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Harvesting thermoelectric energy mainly relies on the Seebeck effect that utilizes a temperature difference between two ends of the device for driving the diffusion of charge carriers. However, in an environment that the temperature is spatially uniform without a gradient, the pyroelectric effect has to be the choice, which is based on the spontaneous polarization in certain anisotropic solids due to a time-dependent temperature variation. Using this effect, we experimentally demonstrate the first application of pyroelectric ZnO nanowire arrays for converting heat energy into electricity. The coupling of the pyroelectric and semiconducting properties in ZnO creates a polarization electric field and charge separation along the ZnO nanowire as a result of the time-dependent change in temperature. The fabricated nanogenerator has a good stability, and the characteristic coefficient of heat flow conversion into electricity is estimated to be ∼0.05-0.08 Vm(2)/W. Our study has the potential of using pyroelectric nanowires to convert wasted energy into electricity for powering nanodevices.