Piezoelectric Response and Substrate Effect of ZnO Nanowires for Mechanical Energy Harvesting in Internet-of-Things Applications

Recently, an unprecedented growth in the internet of things (IoT) is being observed, which is becoming the main driver for the entire semiconductor industry. Reliable maintenance and servicing of the IoT is becoming challenging, knowing that the IoT nodes outnumber the human population by a factor of seven. Energy harvesting (EH) can overcome those difficulties, delivering the energyautonomous IoT nodes to the market. EH converts natural or waste energies (vibrations, heat losses, air flows, light, etc.) into useful energy. This article explores the performance of ZnO nanowires under mechanical actuation to characterize their piezoelectric performance. ZnO nanowires were fabricated using ALD and a subsequent chemical bath growth. AISI 301 steel was used as a substrate of the EH device to better fit the mechanical requirements for the piezoelectric generator. We determined that a thin layer of another oxide below ZnO provides outstanding adhesion. The samples were submitted under repetitive mechanical stress in order to characterize the output piezovoltage for different conditions. They exhibited a piezoelectric signal which was stable after hundreds of actuations. This shows good promise for the use of our device based on ZnO, an Earth-abundant and non-toxic material, as an alternative to the conventional and popular but harmful and toxic PZT. The designed measurement setup demonstrated that a AISI 301 steel substrate coated with ZnO deposited by ALD and grown in a chemical bath has promising performance as a piezoelectric material. Characterized ZnO samples generate up to 80 nJ of energy during 55 s runs under matched load conditions, which is sufficient to supply a modern IoT node.