Multicomponent nanostructured materials and interfaces for efficient piezoelectricity

The development of piezoelectric materials has been an important topic within the ever-growing field of energy harvesting technologies. With recent advances, nanostructured piezoelectric nanogenerators have become a state-of-the-art technology for energy scavenging applications. A large variety of devices have been developed in recent decades. The performance of these electromechanical energy transformation devices has been radically increased with the use of nanostructured and novel materials. Metal oxides with perovskite structures and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are two important substrates paving the way towards enhanced piezoelectric devices in the modern era. Previously, only ferroelectric materials with strong dipole moment had the upper hand in term of electromechanical response. Further, advanced studies have shown that surface activation could lead to an increase of the organized dipole, and thus allow for avoidance of poling. This review summarizes recent advanced techniques and improvements of energy generation through this electromechanical piezoelectric system. Classification of multi-dimensional piezoelectric material based nanogenerators has also been briefly addressed.