A phenomenon first observed by an ancient Greek philosopher 2,300 years ago has become the basis for a new device designed to harvest the enormous amounts of energy wasted as heat each year to produce electricity. The first-of-its-kind “pyroelectric nanogenerator” is the topic of a report in ACS’ journal Nano Letters.
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| (a) SEM image of the as-grown ZnO nanowire array. (b) Tilted cross-sectional SEM image of the ZnO nanowire array. (c) Schematic diagram showing the structure of the pyroelectric nanogenerator. (d) I–V characteristics of the nanogenerator measured at room temperature, showing the presence of a Schottky contact between Ag and ZnO nanowires. © 2012 American Chemical Society |
