Interfacial Built-In Electric Field-Driven Direct Current Generator Based on Dynamic Silicon Homojunction

Searching for light and miniaturized functional device structures for sustainable energy gathering from the environment is the focus of energy society with the development of the internet of things.The proposal of a dynamic heterojunction-based direct current generator builds up new platforms for developing in situ energy.However,the requirement of different semiconductors in dynamic heterojunction is too complex to wide applications,generating energy loss for crystal structure mismatch.Herein,dynamic homojunction generators are explored,with the same semiconductor and majority carrier type.Systematic experiments reveal that the majority of carrier directional separation originates from the breaking symmetry between carrier distribution,leading to the rebounding effect of carriers by the interfacial electric field.Strikingly,NN Si homojunction with different Fermi levels can also output the electricity with higher current density than PP/PN homojunction,attributing to higher carrier mobility.The current density is as high as 214.0 A/m^(2),and internal impedance is as low as 3.6 kΩ,matching well with the impedance of electron components.Furthermore,the N-i-N structure is explored,whose output voltage can be further improved to 1.3V in the case of the N-Si/Al2O3/N-Si structure,attributing to the enhanced interfacial barrier.This approach provides a simple and feasible way of converting low-frequency disordered mechanical motion into electricity.

Tunable Dynamic Black Phosphorus/Insulator/Si Heterojunction Direct-Current Generator Based on the Hot Electron Transport

Static heterojunction-based electronic devices have been widely applied because carrier dynamic processes between semiconductors can be designed through band gap engineering.Herein,we demonstrate a tunable direct-current generator based on the dynamic heterojunction,whose mechanism is based on breaking the symmetry of drift and diffusion currents and rebounding hot carrier transport in dynamic heterojunctions.Furthermore,the output voltage can be delicately adjusted and enhanced with the interface energy level engineering of inserting dielectric layers.Under the ultrahigh interface electric field,hot electrons will still transfer across the interface through the tunneling and hopping effect.In particular,the intrinsic anisotropy of black phosphorus arising from the lattice structure produces extraordinary electronic,transport,and mechanical properties exploited in our dynamic heterojunction generator.Herein,the voltage of 6.1 V,current density of 124.0 A/m^(2),power density of 201.0 W/m^(2),and energy-conversion efficiency of 31.4%have been achieved based on the dynamic black phosphorus/AlN/Si heterojunction,which can be used to directly and synchronously light up light-emitting diodes.This direct-current generator has the potential to convert ubiquitous mechanical energy into electric energy and is a promising candidate for novel portable and miniaturized power sources in the in situ energy acquisition field.

Polarized Water Driven Dynamic PN Junction-Based Direct-Current Generator

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 0.64μA.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.