Toward self-powered sensor networks

The future of nanotechnology is likely to focus on the areas of integrating individual nanodevices into a nanosystem that acts like living specie with sensing, communicating, controlling and responding. A nanosystem requires a nano-power source to make the entire package extremely small and high performance. The goal is to make self-powered nanosystem that can operate wirelessly, independently and sustainably. The self-powering approach developed here is a new paradigm in nanotechnology for truly achieving sustainable self-sufficient micro/nano-systems, which are of critical importance for sensing, medical science, infrastructure/environmental monitoring, defense technology and even personal electronics. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.