Stacked piezoelectric energy harvesting device by printing process

A simple printing process to design a novel piezoelectric energy-harvesting device made from vinylidene fluoride/trifluoroethylene copolymers is presented. Fabrication using a metal nanoink and a household printer dramatically reduced the fabrication complexity. In addition, this process employed low-temperature steps, and thus the structural damage to the polymers resulting from high-temperature annealing was avoided. By stacking the devices and connecting them in parallel, the generated energy was increased and electric power of ∼1.12 μJ was obtained.