Multilayered-Electrode-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerators with Managed Output Voltage and Multifold Enhanced Charge Transport

The open-circuit voltage of a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) increases with the tribo-charge density and the separated distance between two tribo-surfaces, which can reach several thousand volts and is much higher than the working voltage required by most electrical devices and energy storage units. Therefore, improving the effective efficiency of TENGs requires reducing the output voltage and enhancing the transferred charges. Here, a multilayered-electrode-based TENG (ME-TENG) is developed in which the output voltage can be managed by controlling the charge flow in a process of multiple (N) steps, which results in N times lower voltage but N times higher total charge transport. The ME-TENG is demonstrated to work in various modes, including multichannel, single-channel, and double-tribo-surface structures. The effects of insulator layer thickness and total layer number on the output voltage are simulated by the finite element method. The output voltage can be modulated from 14 to 102 V by changing the insulator layer number between two adjacent working electrodes, based on which the 8-bit logic representations of the characters in the ACSII code table are demonstrated. The ME-TENG provides a novel method to manage the output power and has potential applications in self-powered sensors array and human-machine interfacing with logic communications.