Yanghua Lu1, Yanfei Yan1, Xutao Yu1, Xu Zhou2,3, Sirui Feng1, Chi Xu1, Haonan Zheng1, Zunshan Yang1, Linjun Li4, Kaihui Liu2, Shisheng Lin1,4. 1. College of Microelectronics, College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. 2. State Key Lab for Mesoscopic Physics and Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. 3. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China. 4. State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
Abstract
There is a rising prospective in harvesting energy from the environment, as in situ energy is required for the distributed sensors in the interconnected information society, among which the water flow energy is the most potential candidate as a clean and abundant mechanical source. However, for microscale and unordered movement of water, achieving a sustainable direct-current generating device with high output to drive the load element is still challenging, which requires for further exploration. Herein, we propose a dynamic PN water junction generator with moving water sandwiched between two semiconductors, which outputs a sustainable direct-current voltage of 0.3 V and a current of 0.64 μA. The mechanism can be attributed to the dynamic polarization process of water as moving dielectric medium in the dynamic PN water junction, under the Fermi level difference of two semiconductors. We further demonstrate an encapsulated portable power-generating device with simple structure and continuous direct-current voltage output of 0.11 V, which exhibits its promising potential application in the field of wearable devices and the IoTs.
There is a rising prospn>ecn>an class="Chemical">tive in harvesting energy from the environment, as in situ energy is required for the distributed sensors in the interconnected information society, among which the water flow energy is the most potential candidate as a clean and abundant mechanical source. However, for microscale and unordered movement of water, achieving a sustainable direct-current generating device with high output to drive the load element is still challenging, which requires for further exploration. Herein, we propose a dynamic PN water junction generator with moving water sandwiched between two semiconductors, which outputs a sustainable direct-current voltage of 0.3 V and a current of 0.64 μA. The mechanism can be attributed to the dynamic polarization process of water as moving dielectric medium in the dynamic PN water junction, under the Fermi level difference of two semiconductors. We further demonstrate an encapsulated portable power-generating device with simple structure and continuous direct-current voltage output of 0.11 V, which exhibits its promising potential application in the field of wearable devices and the IoTs.