Electrochemical synthesis of p-Cu2O/n-ZnO heterojuncion for enhanced piezoelectric nanogenerators

Abstract

The output performance of ZnO piezoelectric nanogenerators (NGs) has been limited because of the potential screening of large excess intrinsic electron carriers in ZnO. In this study, a simple and effective approach was demonstrated to fabricated piezoelectric nanogenerators (NGs) with higher output performance by constructing a p-Cu2O/n-ZnO heterojunction. The p–n heterostructure formed by adding Cu2O layer on ZnO, effectively reduced potential screening from intrinsic free electron carriers of ZnO. Using this approach, we obtained a maximum of output current up to 900\xa0nA, which was a 30-fold higher output current compared with ZnO NG without a Cu2O layer. These results indicate a compatible strategy for realizing a high-performance piezoelectric harvesting devices.