Branched ZnO nanotrees on flexible fiber-paper substrates for self-powered energy-harvesting systems

In this paper, branched ZnO nanotrees (NTs) have been synthesized on flexible fiber-paper substrates by introducing a multistep hydrothermal approach for realizing high-performance piezoelectric nanogenerators. With this method, a significant enhancement in output voltage of the NGs ranging from 14 mV to 0.1 V was achieved, with a nearly 20 times enhanced power density compared to the vertically grown ZnO NWs. This is the first demonstration of fabricating branched ZnO NTs-coated fiber paper for energy harvesting devices, which may provide guidelines for designing high-performance piezoelectric energy harvesting.