Piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties of intrinsic GaN nanowires and nanotubes: Size and shape effects

Gallium nitride (GaN) nanowires and nanotubes possess extraordinary device ability of converting wasted energy into harvestable electricity in terms of their piezoelectricity and pyroelectricity. From the perspective of atomic cohesive energy, we present a model to clarify the physical origin of the size- and shape-dependency of the piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties for intrinsic GaN nanowires and nanotubes. It is shown that both the piezopotential and the pyropotential increase with the inverse of GaN nanocrystal size or with the shape factor. The influence of size and shape becomes more significant for nanotubes with smaller size or wall thick-to-size ratio and may enhance both potentials by up to dozens of times or even more. Such size and shape effects originate from the synergetic effects of nanoscale dielectricity, piezoelectricity and thermoelasticity where the piezoelectricity plays a more important role than the other two factors. Moreover, high piezopotential and pyropotential in GaN nanotubes render them appealing in the design of novel nanogenerators in comparison with the most commonly used nanowires.