Technology advancement that can provide new solutions and enable augmented capabilities to complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-based technology, such as active and adaptive interaction between machine and human/ambient, is highly desired. Piezotronic nanodevices and integrated systems exhibit potential in achieving these application goals. Utilizing the gating effect of piezopotentia...

Energy harvesting technologies that are engineered to miniature sizes, while still increasing the power delivered to wireless electronics, (1, 2) portable devices, stretchable electronics, (3) and implantable biosensors, (4, 5) are strongly desired. Piezoelectric nanowire- and nanofiber-based generators have potential uses for powering such devices through a conversion of mechanical energy into...

P iezoelectric materials are the key functional component in many devices, such as sensors, actuators, ultrasonic transducers, sonar systems, and energy scavengers. These applications take advantage of the direct or reverse piezoelectric effects caused by simultaneous shifts in positive and negative charge centers within the primitive unit cell in response to mechanical deformation. Ideal piezo...

Strained quantum wells (QWs) grown along the polar axis (1 11) in a zincblende semiconductor exhibit a piezoelectric field. This field strongly modifies the energy of excitons confined in QWs. We have extracted, from optical measurements of excitonic transitions, the piezoelectric field value in a large set of QWs: CdTdCdZnTe, CdTeICdMnTe, CdZnTeICdMnTe. By suitably choosing the composition of ...

Piezoelectrically actuated micromechanical resonators have been a subject of extensive research for the past decade with the main goal of replacing quartz resonators in timing applications. Aluminum nitride (AlN) has been the main contender as a piezoelectric ceramic replacement for quartz since its low-temperature sputtering process has been developed. In recent years, gallium nitride (GaN) ha...

In this work, the dependence of piezoelectric coefficients (PE) on the size of artificial fabricated ZnO micropillars on Si substrate is investigated. ZnO full film is grown with c-axis orientation and an average grain size of 20 nm at a substrate temperature of 500 °C by pulsed laser ablation. The micropillars with the size range of 1.5 to 7 μm are formed by top-down semiconductor device proce...

Through a process of photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, we demonstrated an effective strategy for engineering the barrier height of a heterogeneous semiconductor interface by piezoelectric polarization, known as the piezotronic effect. A consistent enhancement or reduction of photocurrent was observed when tensile or compressive strains were applied to the ZnO anode, respectively. The ...

The strain-induced band structure change in a semiconductor can change its resistivity, known as the piezoresistive effect. If the semiconductor is also a piezoelectric material, strain-induced polarization charge can control the current transport at the metal-semiconductor contact, which is called a 'piezotronic effect'. Piezotronic effect is intertwined with piezoresistive effect in the study...