Gao Xin, Zheng Mupeng, Zhu Mankang, Hou Yudong
Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials, Ministry of Education, Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Aug 30;15(34):40579-40587. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c08036. Epub 2023 Aug 19.
Although the ability to convert biomechanical vibrations into electric energy has been demonstrated in organic-inorganic piezocomposites, it is challenging to improve their piezoelectric properties owing to insufficient electric field poling. Here, we propose a facile and effective approach to enhance the poling efficiency of a barium calcium zirconate titanate/polydimethylsiloxane (BCZT/PDMS) composite by introducing copper nanowires (Cu NWs) to tune the resistivity of the PDMS matrix. The Cu NW-modified PDMS weakens the resistivity mismatch between the BCZT filler and the PDMS matrix, allowing a higher poling electric field to be applied to the BCZT filler during poling. As a result, the BCZT/Cu-PDMS piezocomposite exhibited a high piezoelectric quality factor ( × ) of 2.58 pm/N, which was about 7 times higher than that of BCZT/PDMS ( × = 0.38 pm/N). Moreover, BCZT/Cu-PDMS showed a much higher power density (3.18 μW/cm) and a faster charging capability. This composite approach of introducing metal nanowires can be considered as a generic poling-improvement method that can be extended to other organic-inorganic piezocomposite systems.
