Wide Range Fabrication of Wrinkle Patterns for Maximizing Surface Charge Density of a Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Wrinkle patterns, as a simple surface patterning process, have been previously used in triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to improve electric performance. However, since lacking an effective way to control the wrinkle pattern in a wide range, the influence of wrinkle pattern to the performance of TENG has not been systematically investigated. This paper proposes a pre-heating process to adjust the modulus of uncured polydimethylsiloxane, resulting in wide-range controllable wrinkle patterns. Quantitative measurements show the wrinkle pattern wavelength (λ) could be varied from 20.13 to 0.92∼μ\m by pre-heating time from 0 to 10 min. Using this wide-range wrinkle pattern, the performance of TENG was remarkably improved with a higher surface charge density of 537.6∼μC\m2. Through simulating the impact of interfacial structures deformation, we found smaller structure leading to higher performance of TENG at low pressure region and smaller surface area resulting in a lower performance, which accounted for the correlation we observed in this paper, and could guide the structure design for a high-charge-density TENG. This paper provides an alternative way for controlling wrinkle pattern as well as increasing surface charge density of TENG from fabrication process, simulated results, theoretical analysis, and quantitative measurements. © 1992-2012 IEEE.