Tunable Tribovoltaic Effect via Metal–Insulator Transition

• Published in: Nano letters 2022-11, Vol.22 (22), p.9084-9091
• Main Authors: Yang, Ruizhe, He, Zihao, Lin, Shiquan, Dou, Wenjie, Wang, Zhong Lin, Wang, Haiyan, Liu, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c03481

Tribovoltaic direct-current (DC) nanogenerator made of dynamic semiconductor heterojunction is emerging as a promising mechanical energy harvesting technology. However, fundamental understanding of the mechano-electronic carrier excitation and transport at dynamic semiconductor interfaces remains to be investigated. Here, we demonstrated for the first time, that tribovoltaic DC effect can be tuned with metal-insulator transition (MIT). In a representative MIT material (vanadium dioxide, VO2), we found that the short-circuit current (I SC) can be enhanced by >20 times when the material is transformed from insulating to metallic state upon static or dynamic heating, while the open-circuit voltage (V OC) turns out to be unaffected. Such phenomenon may be understood by the Hubbard model for Mott insulator: orders’ magnitude increase in conductivity is induced when the nearest hopping changes dramatically and overcomes the Coulomb repulsion, while the Coulomb repulsion giving rise to the quasi-particle excitation energy remains relatively stable.