Self-powered nanosensors using nanogenerators

Abstract

Wearable electronics and smart technologies attracted widespread attention toward the development of self-powered nanosensors. Various power generation methods such as piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and triboelectric mechanisms are adopted for the execution of such systems, and most significantly the nanoparticles of different structural and functional properties are applied for the material development. This chapter collectively elaborates on all the different nanogenerators and the self-powered sensors based on the piezo-, pyro-, and triboelectric power generating systems. Structure-property relationships of materials such as crystalline semiconducting oxides (ZnO) used for the nanogenerator fabrication are discussed in detail. All kinds of self-powered nanosensors (piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and triboelectric) based on nanosensors are identified in terms of their output voltage generation, capacity to charge/discharge, response and recovery times, and the possible applications in biomedical engineering, robotics, and other industrial fields